Sir, this is a very important matter and affects the fundamental right of every citizen to be tried by a competent court of law before he is deprived of his liberty. No doubt there may be circumstances in which action should be taken immediately but that should not deprive the citizen of his fundamental right of being tried by a court of law. The reason why I have given notice of this amendment is the recent experience we have had in the various provinces in the matter of enforcing ordinances and even the Public Safety Acts which have taken the form of ordinances. The ordinances were later made into law, but the important matter to be noted is that the fundamental right of the citizen to be tried by a court of law has been lost to him. I know that in the province of Madras there have been hundreds of cases in which even the provisions made in the Public Safety Act passed by the legislature of that province have not been complied with the persons were arrested and detained in custody not merely for weeks but for months without even being the grounds for which they were arrested. This is a very scandalous state of affairs. You might have come across the judgments of the High Court which were published in the Press and this practice has been condemned in strongest words by the High Court of Madras, very recently. After all there may be some emergency in which some extraordinary power has to exercised, but that should not in any way deprive a citizen of his elementary right, and after all, I do not know why the citizen should be deprived of that right, even though emergencies might arise, in which quick action is necessary. But the scandalous way in which even the Public Safety Act has been administered in an eye-opener to us that to give such a power to the President to pass ordinances, which give unrestricted powers to deprive the citizens of their liberty, should not be tolerated; and therefore, Sir, I submit that this is a very necessary and desirable proviso that should be added to this clause, and I would request the House to take into considerations the recent experiences in the administration of Public Safety Ordinances and Public Safety Acts, by which innocent citizens have been kept without trial for months and months together in very many cases a person is kept in custody for months and months and then he is just released without giving any reason. I submit, Sir, that in future there should be no rule for tolerating such a state of affairs, and therefore I would request honourable Members of this House to pay serious considerations to this aspects of this matter and though the drafters of this clause may have in view the Communists or such other bodies, even that is no justification for depriving the citizens of their liberty, entirely by such ordinances and that too indefinitely. Therefore, I submit, Sir, that this House may be pleased to accept this amendment.
