Mr. President, Sir, when the Draft was originally prepared, there was no intention of placing the States in Part III on the same footing as the States in Part I of the first Schedule. In fact, it is a quite recent idea that the States in Part III should be brought into line with the States in Part I in regard to the power of Parliament to legislate and necessary amendments are being incorporated in the various articles that we are dealing with. When we came to article 225, that article was held over. That relates to the general right of Parliament to legislate for the States in Part III and consideration is held over because evidently the relations between the Centre or Parliament and the States in Part III have not been fully settled. That is all right; but what I wish to point out is this. In regard to law making, till now, the right of the Central legislature did not extend to States in Part III. The laws in States like Travancore and Mysore have all along been made by the local legislature. I wish to bring to the notice of this House the fact that there is a lot of difference between the laws in the States and in the rest of India. For instance, I may say that in Travancore, we have abolished the death penalty for murder. Now, that subject would come in the Concurrent List; so also various other matter. How are you going to reconcile that fact with the provisions in article 231, namely, that all existing laws, not only laws to be enacted by Parliament in future, but also existing laws enacted by the Central legislature till now, will prevail whenever there is conflict between the laws of the States and the Central laws? It would be a tremendous task to bring into line these two sets of laws and to reconcile them. Until that is done, the enforcement of article 231 in respect of the State in Part III will be nigh impossible. I do not find any provision regarding the way in which the difficulty is proposed to be met. I only wanted to bring this to the notice of the House so that this serious difficulty may be got over and suitable provisions made in the Constitution. A lot of work will have to be done in bringing about uniformity. Generally, Indian laws will have to be adopted in the States. But in some cases, the law in the States will have to be introduced in the whole of the country. For instance, in regard to the death penalty, Travancore cannot be asked to go back to the old order of things and re-impose death penalty for murder. Wherever we find more progressive legislation existing in the States than in the provinces, that legislation will have to be accepted by the Indian parliament and uniformity will have to be brought about. I wish to know from Dr. Ambedkar how the difficulty is proposed to be got over. I hope that uniformity will be brought about and that those that are now striving for it will succeed in inducing those that are responsible for administration and legislation in the State to agree to have uniform legislation in regard to matters affecting the whole country. If we pass article 231 without realising the magnitude of the difficulties that face us in regard to this matter, it would be a wrong step. I wish to bring this matter to the notice of the House and particularly of Dr. Ambedkar.
