Executive Authority of Provinces Defined

“It shall be competent for a province, with the previous sanction of the Federal Government, to undertake, by an agreement made in that behalf with any Indian State, any legislative, executive or judicial functions vested in that State, provided that the agreement relates to a subject included in the provincial or concurrent legislative lists. On such an agreement being concluded, the Province may subject to the terms thereof exercise the legislative, executive or judicial functions specified therein through the appropriate authorities of the province.

Mr G.N. Gupta moved an addition to this clause to remove what he called a lacuna and fill up the blanks in respect of the executive authority of each province. His amendment sought to add the following to the clause:

“Subject to the provisions of the constitution and of any special agreement referred to in clause eight, the executive authority of each Province shall extend to matters with respect to which the Provincial Legislature has power to make laws”.

Both Sir B.L. Mitter’s redrafted clause and Mr Gupta’s amendment were adopted by the House.

Sir B.L. Mitter said the redrafted clause which he had submitted was unanimously agreed to by the Experts committee. It was well known that the authority of Provincial Governments, executive, judicial or legislative, could not extend beyond the borders of the Province. But the clause gave the provinces such extra-territorial authority by agreement with an Indian State. Suppose there was a backward State adjoining a Province and for some executive, judicial or legislative function, the state did not have its own machinery to exercise those functions, such a state could enter into an agreement with the neighbouring province so that the machinery of the Province would be available to it for its own benefit as well as that of the Province. It might quite be that such agreements between a state and a province might be harmful to a third state or province. In order to safeguard against that anger the clause makes previous sanction of the Federal Government compulsory for such agreements.

Sir Alladi Krishnaswami Iyer, supporting Sir B.L. Mitter, said the reason for the clause was the existence of a large number of minor states spread all over India which might find it difficult to provide adequate or effective machinery for the exercise of certain administrative and judicial functions. In the interests of both efficiency and economy the adjoining province could be empowered to take over those functions.

When the Constitution is finally settled Sir Alladi hoped, the Union constitution would also provide for the Governor of the Federation exercising plenary jurisdiction in territories ceded to or coming under the control of the Union government, similar to the jurisdiction exercise by the agencies of the British Crown under the British Foreign Jurisdiction Act. The provision now inserted was of course, without prejudice to any such general provision being made…

Mr Omeo Kumar Das moved an amendment seeking to increase representation in the Provincial Assemblies by demanding that the member should be elected for every 75,000 of the population. Mr Nichols Roy sought to secure representation for tribesmen from the thinly populated hills, especially in Assam, by adding a proviso to the clause which read: “Provided that in giving representation to any territorial area or areas inhabited by hill tribes the Provincial Government may determine a lower basis of population than one lakh and the total representation of the Province shall be increased accordingly.”…