Mr. President, we are considering three Articles together, 188, 277-A and 278 and I think these Articles are of the utmost importance in this Constitution. I personally feel happy that Article 188 is being deleted. ‘In fact, I had given an amendment which is No. 160 in the printed list suggesting that the Governor should not be given the power to issue Proclamation and that it should be only the President who should have the authority. So I agree with the deletion, but with this deletion Article 278 has been made more sweeping. In fact, Article 188 had said that if at any time the Governor of a State is satisfied that a grave emergency has arisen which threatens the peace and tranquility of a State, then alone he was empowered to issue a Proclamation and Article 278 was only to conform to that declaration. But the new draft does not take this fact into consideration. It says that if “the President on receipt of a report from the Governor or otherwise is satisfied“, he can take action under this Article. This gives very sweeping powers to the President. There need not be any grave emergency. If only the President is satisfied that the Government cannot be carried on in accordance with this Constitution, then he can issue a Proclamation under Article 278. Article 277-A puts upon Parliament the responsibility of protecting every unit of the Union against external aggression and internal disturbance so that here also it is only external aggression and internal disturbance, and internal disturbance is too wide a term. The Article does not say chaos or even grave emergency. Personally I feel that the powers given in Article 278 are far too sweeping. I am glad that the ultimate authority lies with the Parliament, and therefore, we cannot say that these Articles nullify the entire autonomy of the State. That of course, is a very important safeguard, because,’ after all has been done, ultimately the Indian Parliament remains a sovereign body and the final authority responsible for the administration of the province. The President also cannot do anything without putting the matter before Parliament, although he has two months time in which he can have his own way. I therefore think that I cannot condemn the Article as strongly as my Friend Mr. Kamath has done. But I feel that by these Articles we are reducing the autonomy of the States to a farce. These Articles will reduce the State Governments to great subservience to the Central Government. They cannot have any independence whatsoever. I do not want the State to pull in one direction and the Centre in another, still there must be some autonomy for the States and I say Articles 277-A and 278 take away this autonomy. I feel that even if these Articles are omitted, there are Articles 275 and 276 and these two Articles give the executive all the powers necessary to deal with an emergency. If there is an emergency, you can issue a Proclamation under Article 275, and by 276 you can legislate on matters relating to the Provinces. So Articles 275 and 276 are quite sufficient. The introduction of Articles 277-A and 278 is not desirable and these Articles, in fact, lay us open to the charge that we are reducing provincial autonomy to a farce. In fact, what does Article 278 say? If you see the Government of India Act, 1935, you will find that this Article is almost a word for word reproduction of section 93 of that Act; only for the Parliament of England, you have substituted the Houses of Parliament in India and for the period of six months, you have put down two months in this Article. The rest is all identical. And what is more interesting is that in the Government of India Act, 1935 as amended, and which is now in force in this country, this particular Article is omitted. So in a way the present Government of India Act under which we are now being governed, is more progressive than the Article which we are now going to pass, because in this present Government of India Act, there is no section 93, and we are re-introducing it in our new Constitution. I surely think that this is a retrograde step. I should have been much happier if these particular Articles were not there. Even if you must put in these two Articles I would strongly plead that at least the word “otherwise” be taken away. There is no justification for the President to interfere with a State until at least the Governor who is his own nominee has reported to him. But here he has power to interfere of his own volition even though the Governor may not be of that opinion, and the Provincial Ministers may disagree with him.
