No use saying, ” Nothing of the kind.” I am talking of the Constitution. What has been done here? He has been there carrying on whatever he has to do, as any other Governor-General was carrying on before the British left. So, I say, Sir, I am pointing out the weakness in this Constitution which is being drafted under the auspices of Britain in pursuance of the provisions of the Indian Independence Act. I am pointing out how Britain was interested in keeping a hold over this country even until the day the Indian Independence Act was passed. In section 17 of that Act they say that the Secretary of State should not be made liable for anything that had been done while the English People were carrying on the Government. It was also stated there that the British Exchequer should not be made liable for anything that might have been done by them when they were in office. I have been at this point for the last two or three years. I have been anxious to point out that Britain had done the greatest wrong to the people of this country when it contracted certain loans under Section 315 of Government of India Act, 1935 and these loans were contracted by the issue of currency notes without any metallic backing. The total amount in circulation before the war started was Rs. 714 crores or so. By the time the war ended when we came to 1948, the total amount came to Rs. 1, 214 crores of currency notes. I say, I have been saying, and I said in my budget speech in Parliament the other day that these currency notes that were issued by them during the period of war without having any metallic security, are not worth the paper upon which the currency notes were printed, and the people of this country who accepted the currency notes and paid the cash into the hands of the British Government should not be made liable. That is my point and it is a point which I wanted to raise. I am not taking you by surprise. Dr. Ambedkar, is the Chairman of the Drafting Committee and the legal adviser of this Constitution -making body, – I wrote to him and gave him notice of a resolution two years back. In that note I pointed out the whole of this business and asked them to have that resolution tabled and placed before the House. I got no notice of it and I could not attend for some time. Afterwards a note issued from Shri Satyanarayan Sinha saying that those who were sitting there should not come here. I have come here on a special /requisition made to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. This is the notice of the resolution given by me on 14th August 1949. “I beg to give notice to move the following resolution on an urgent matter of public interest for consideration and decision before the sovereign body of the Constituent Assembly can proceed to further consideration and further drafting of the Union Constitution”.
