Mr. President, Sir it was not my intention to speak on this article, but coming as I do from Madras I have been experiencing how the two Chambers have been working, and how the Upper Chamber retards the work of the legislature. So far as the Congress Legislative Party is concerned, it is meeting more or less as a joint sitting, for everything that has to be passed in the Legislature is being discussed there. As is well-known, it is in the Lower House that all Bills originate, but its number happens to be 215 and in a joint sitting with the Upper House, it is not a deciding factor. So the Upper House restrains legislation that is passed by the Lower Chamber. If the Upper Chamber does not agree with anything, it can suggest amendments, and send back the Bill to the Lower Chamber, and Chamber does not agree and there is a dispute, then there is a suggestion in the clause for joint sittings. If there is a clear division, say of 100 on one side and 150 on the other, then practically the Lower Chamber will become the deciding factors in the joint sitting. But the Upper Chamber does not represent the people directly. The Upper Chambers as constituted today happen to be representatives of the petty bourgeoisie and bureaucrats, and wherever there is any trend towards progressive legislation, they try to delay matters and even to torpedo legislation passed by the Lower Chamber. As a common man, as a layman, that is how I feel about this matter. Whether there should be an Upper Chamber or not was considered by the Provincial Legislature and I was against it for a very long time. But we are now going may be people of experience and also people of little experience. So it is that we may have their experienced politicians nominated in the Upper Chamber so that we may have their experience and guidance. That was the reason which made me support the proposal to have an Upper Chamber. I do not think there was such a provision in the 1935 Act; but after all we did not work that Act fully. We had experience of it only for about a year and a half from 1937 to 1939. Within this period I do not think we ever had occasion to have a joint sitting. But as I said, in the Congress Legislative Party, we members who belongs to both Chambers assemble and discuss and decide, and so we were practically having joint sittings. We also found that progressive legislations brought in by members of the Lower Chamber were more or less retarded or delayed by the Members of the Upper Chamber. But anyhow, the Honourable Dr. Ambedkar has explained that as it is constituted, the Upper Chamber will not act as a check or rather that it will not stand in the way of progressive legislation. The people to be elected to the Upper House will not be elected from the landlords or zamindars, but by the people of the Lower Chambers; so I agree to this. The members of the Lower Chambers will understand what sort of people are to be elected to the Upper House. That does not mean, however, that once elected it will be the will of the people who elected them that will prevail. It is the will of the people who are elected that prevail in the House. That is the point to be considered to see that progressive legislations are not checked. In my opinion, in order to have a kind of check over the hasty legislations of the Lower Chamber, it would be better to have a time-limit during which the Upper Chamber must deal with a particular question. During that period the Upper Chamber must either accept the legislation passed by the Lower Chamber or send it back to the Lower Chamber for rectifying any defects. If the Lower Chamber sticks to its own guns, and says that it will not yield, then by the sheer lapse of time it would become the law. That, I think would have been better than having joint sittings. But anyhow there is provision in this Constitution that after ten years, if the people feel the necessity for it, they can change any clause or article in it, and they say, “practice makes a men perfect.” After some time, as in the future legislature there will be the real representatives of the people, they will be in a position to know actually the difficulties they have to face because of this clause, and they may effect the necessary change. Sir, with these words, I conclude.
