Then coming to proposed article 278-A sub-clause (a) and (b) of clause (1) are new. Clause (a) is new and (b) is consequential. The new point which has been introduced is also revolutionary. Instead of allowing the Provincial Legislatures to have their say on the emergency legislation and thereby giving the Provincial Assemblies an opportunity to assess the guilt or innocence of the Ministers or other person or to give a verdict, the responsibility is thrown on the Parliament. That would again, as I submitted yesterday, go to make the Central Government and the Parliament unpopular in the State concerned. It may happen that Provincial Ministers and others are guilty of mismanagement and misgovernment; but if we do not allow the Provincial Assemblies to sit in judgment over them, the result would be that guilty or innocent persons, lawbreakers and law-abiding persons, good or bad people in the State should all be combined. The result would be that those for whose misdeeds the Emergency Powers would be necessary, would be made so many heroes; they would be lionised, and the. object of teaching them a lesson would be frustrated. The Centre would be unpopular on the ground that it is poking its nose unnecessarily and mischievously into their domestic affairs.
