Then I come to a new provision that has been made in the financial sections of this Draft Constitution, viz. Article 260. Article 260, Sir speaks of a Finance Commission. In fact, Sir, in the terms of reference that you had sent to the Expert Committee you yourself made that suggestion, but I do not know if it is at all necessary for us to incorporate in the constitution an Article like 260 which is mandatory only in regard to one particular aspect of it. namely, the appointment of a Commission. The duties assigned to it, to arbitrate between provincial units and the Centre and also to act as a sort of Grants Commission, can actually be done by any Commission approved by any law enacted by Parliament. Parliament is empowered to appoint a Commission of this nature so long as the recommendations of the Commission are not mandatory on the Central and provincial governments which is the position as the wording of Article 260 as it now stands. So what I really feel would be wiser to insert it, in view of the fact that we have had no time to examine the financial implications of this Constitution and in view of the fact that we could not apportion the heads of income properly between the provinces and the Centre, a provision in the Constitution itself for a Commission which will go into the entire financial structure of the country and make recommendations even in regard to changing the heads in the lists assigned to the provinces and the Centre. As a matter of fact, mention has been made by the Expert Committee that it should be done, though they have not gone further into it. What I would like to have in this Constitution is that a Finance Commission should be appointed and that Commission should be empowered to make recommendations to make alterations in both lists 1 and 2 and that the recommendations of that Commission should be adopted as a part of the constitution and should be obligatory on the Government of India and the provincial governments without going to the needless process and trouble of an amendment to the constitution. I do not know,Sir, if such a thing is possible but I see that the mover of this motion is not here–probably he may have been able to enlighten me on this point if he were here–but I do feel that an attempt should be made to insert a provision of this nature in the Constitution. I would only say, Sir, when dealing with this particular aspect of the matter that I feel that the defects in regard to the distribution of the financial powers in the 1935 Act have not been properly appreciated and no serious attempt has been made to devise methods to increase the revenues of the provinces which do badly need additional resources and to have a more rational and equitable system of taxation in this country.
