Petitions
P.L. Jaitly
.
P.L. Jaitly of Allahabad wrote to the Speaker of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly on 27 February 1948. The letter was not addressed to the Constituent Assembly, but copies were sent to the President of the Constituent Assembly, the Constitutional Advisor, the Law Member, the Prime Minister, and several other Union and provincial authorities, which is likely how it entered the Assembly’s files.
Jaitly’s argument was that Muslim League members should no longer be sitting in the U.P. Legislative Assembly. After the Indian Independence Act 1947 divided India into two dominions, the Muslim League’s representatives and their voters were constitutionally associated with Pakistan. Whether Partition was understood as territorial or communal, these members could not validly continue in the legislature of the other dominion without a Naturalisation Act accepting them as residents. Their continued presence made the Assembly’s proceedings constitutionally defective and invalid.
He asked that this error be rectified before the Assembly continued its business. The letter is short, written in a single dense paragraph of constitutional reasoning prompted by a newspaper report on the amalgamation of the High Court at Allahabad.
To
The Hon’ble Speaker,
U.P. Legislative Assembly,
L U C K N O W.
Sir,
Reference to publication in “Patrika” dated 26th Faby:, 1948, on page 2, regarding amalgmation of High Court to sit at Allahabad, I find Muslim League member s are still continuing in the Assembly and participating in the proceedings of the House which is unconstitutional[unclear] since 15.8.47 after the division of India in accordance with the Indian Independence Act 1947. The territories of the two new dominions were decided on the settlement of the Muslim League representatives on the one side and the Congress nominated members on the other and one dominion was assigned to the followers of the Islam according to the demand of Muslim League who got the territory of one dominion in the name of ‘Pakistan’. Now it follows that the voters of the ‘Pakistan’ are the voters in that territory who caused the division on the basis of the settlement. If this division is on the basis of territory of two dominions then all the residents living in that territory on 15.8.47 are voters of that territory and they cannot be voters of the other territory unless Naturalisation Act is passed to accept the foreigners as the residents of the other territory and if the division of the territory is on the basis of Muslim or non-Muslims ipso facto residents of that territory having right of votes only in that territory and therefore they cannot remain in the legislation of the non-Muslims territory alloted under the Indian Independence Act. Further, if the division of India had been on the basis of territory only irrespective of residential rights of the party then constitution-ally all the residents residing on 15.8.47 in the territory have become ipso facto constitutionally voters of that territory alone. So the representation
P.T.O.
of Muslim League members in the House is not consti-tutional and as such the proceedings of the Assembly cannot be said to be valid when the representation in the Assembly is defective and unconstitutional.
It is, therefore, submitted for the protection of the people’s rights of respective two dominions that constitutional error be rectified before continuing Assembly proceedings under such circumstances of defact[unclear] and illegality of the constitution complained above.
Your m.o. servant,
[signature]
(P.L. Jaitly),
27.2.48.
15/17, Canning Road[unclear], Allahabad.
c.c. sent to:-
- Constitutional Advisor, Govt. of India, New Delhi.
- Hon’ble Law Member, Govt. of India, New Delhi.
- Hon’ble Speaker, Legislative Assembly, New Delhi.
- Hon’ble President, Constituent Assembly, New Delhi.
- Hon’ble President, Council of State, New Delhi.
- Hon’ble Minister of Justice, U.P. Govt., Lucknow.
- Hon’ble Premier, U.P., Lucknow.
- Hon’ble Prime Minister, Govt. of India, New Delhi.
- H.E. Governor of U.P., Lucknow.