This is a vital matter to which the Constitutions recently passed in several European countries have attached the greatest importance. The power of passing an Ordinance is equivalent to giving the executive the power of passing a law for a certain period. If there is such an emergency in the country as to require that action should be immediately taken by the promulgation of an Ordinance, it is obviously necessary that Parliament should be summoned to consider the matter as early as possible. Suppose that law and order in the country are seriously affected and the Government of the day consider it necessary that an Ordinance should be promulgated at once in order to prevent the situation from deteriorating or to bring in under control, it is obvious that if the Legislature is not sitting, the Executive must be enabled to arm itself with adequate power to maintain the peace of the country; but it is equally necessary that the Legislature should be summoned without avoidable delay to consider the serious situation that makes the promulgation of the Ordinance necessary. I do not therefore see why an Ordinance promulgated by the Governor-General should be in force for several months. The article, as it is, implies two things, first that the Ordinance will remain in force as long as Parliament does not meet, and secondly that even that Parliament meets, it will not expire immediately but will remain in force for six weeks from its re-assembling unless it is disapproved by both Houses before the expiry of that period. I know that a similar procedure is laid down in the Government of India Act, 1935, but such a procedure was understandable in the circumstances in which the act was passed. That Act was not meant to confer full responsible Government on us. The executive was not even partially responsible to the Legislature. The provisions of the Act were such as to enable the British Government to exercise authority with regard to the maintenance of law and order in the country in the last resort. All that has changed now. We have now a responsible Ministry. There is no reason therefore why the process laid down in the Government of India Act, 1935, should be sought to be copied in the new Constitution.
