Mr. President, sir, I only wish to draw the attention of the House to one provision namely sub-clause (b) under article 83 (1) “if he is of unsound mind and stands so declared by a competent court,” and I hope the soundness of my mind will not be questioned if I say that this clause is not so happily worded as it should be. Sir, I presume that it is the desire of the authors of the Draft Constitution that no person of unsound mind should be allowed to be a member of this House, and I believe that the present House has been so selected, and that no person of unsound mind has been able to creep into this House. Sir, if you allow this clause to stand as it does, it will mean that there will be a large number of persons of unsound minds coming in, because the qualification is there that the man must be declared to be of unsound mind, by a competent court. This question was also raised on the last day of the previous session, and after that, I had tried to find out through the agency of the Government of India, that is to say, by putting questions in the Legislative section of the Constituent Assembly to find out how many of the lunatics who are actually in the different asylums in India have been declared by a competent court to be persons of unsound mind. If you make further investigations into this matter, you will find that not even ten per cent of all the persons who are now undergoing treatment in the different asylums and mental hospitals in India have been declared to be persons of unsound mind, by a competent court. My question is whether you will allow such persons who are actually in the asylums and mental hospitals to be enrolled as voters and also to stand for election. We know that in every village and in every town, there are a certain number of persons who go about like lunatics, and who are actual lunatics, and whom everybody, even the child who pelt stones at them, knows to be a lunatic. It is quite possible, and generally it is true that nobody has taken the trouble to declare them as persons of unsound mind, or to be enrolled? Every villager, every citizen in a town knows that such and such person is of unsound mind, that he is a raving lunatic. Will there be any agency to prevent him from being enrolled as a voter, or standing for election?
