Now, Sir, at most of the places cantonment area is exactly adjacent to the city areas. If the house rent controls and all similar powers were handed over to the Centre, and if those adjacent areas were to, be controlled by the Centre, then it will be an anomaly. One shop on this side of the demarcation line will be controlled by one law; the other shop on the other side of the line will be controlled by another. For a few years we controlled the house rents and house allotments by means of a law in the U. P. which was equally effectively controlling the rents of the cantonment areas. For two or three years it was getting on peacefully, but for the last one year or so, when in our Province the Rent Act was amended, they excluded the cantonment area, perhaps on the desire of the Central Government, with the result that I have received a number of letters from the cantonments of my province, complaining against the hardships which their civil population was undergoing with regard to house rents. I will read a few lines from the letter of the Secretary of the Cantonment Taxpayers’ Association. “More than 1,000 suits for ejectment of tenants from houses and shops in Meerut Cantonment have already been filed in the civil courts, and decrees for ejectment in some cases have already been passed.” This is not a case where the ownership of the buildings or shops belongs to Government. It is about the civil area. The Secretary further says. “In Meerut alone the civil population in the cantonment is more than one lakh”. Now, this one lakh of people belonging to one State shall now for all practical purposes be controlled by a different law from the Centre just as Delhi is controlled by the Centre. When that State enacts a law it will not automatically apply to the civil population in cantonments. The law will only apply if and when the Centre thinks it fit to extend the application thereof to those areas. If this is going to be the state of affairs under the future Constitution. I must protest against it, because all those civilians living in cantonment areas are as good as the rest of the population in a State. To make this distinction will be ‘invidious and unfair. I therefore submit that, except for the local self-government part of it, the civil population of cantonment areas must be controlled on an equal footing with their fellow citizens living as neighbours in the very same State.
