Sir, the amendment which I am moving is totally
different from the amendment which has been moved by my honourable
friend. His amendment provides that under certain circumstances, the
school board shall have the right to remove from office the administrative
officer who has been appointed by the Government. My
amendment is fundamentally different from the amendment of my friend. My
amendment does not give the school board the power to remove or dismiss an
administrative officer. All that the amendment seeks to do is that during
the period when an administrative officer is engaged in doing his service
as an administrative officer under a particular school board, that school board
shall have disciplinary control over him. Sir, it must be120 realized that clause 12 of the Bill is
an anomalous clause in principle. It is an accepted principle that140 an officer must be subordinate to the
authority whose servant he is. Now, by this clause 12, we have provided160 that the administrative officer shall be
appointed by the Provincial Government and that he shall also be the
servant of the Provincial Government.
The evil effects of this anomaly have been pointed out
by various members of the House who have spoken on the amendment which
was tabled by my honourable friend. Therefore, I do not wish to take the
time of the House in repeating what has been stated. What would be the
result of enacting clause 12? I have240
my sympathy with the honourable Prime Minister in the procedure which he
has adopted, namely, the administrative officers should be appointed by the
Provincial Government and should be the servant of the Provincial Government
and for two reasons. One280
reason why I sympathize with the view he has taken is this. If the local
boards or the school boards continue to appoint the administrative officers,
the one result will be that the administrative officer will have to spend320 all his life in one place which
is undoubtedly a bad thing in principle, because, when an officer
remains in service in one particular place all his life, he does create a party
for himself, secures friendship and, therefore, provides for himself360 opportunities and occasions for
exercising his administrative power in a partial way. Therefore, it is very
desirable that these administrative officers should be moved from place
to place just as the practice of moving important officers, like the
Collector or the District Judge, from district to district.
The second reason why I felt a certain amount of
sympathy for420 the procedure
adopted by the honourable Prime Minister is this. Unless the Government
appoints the administrative officers, it is not possible to provide a
cadre with a regular service, with prospects of promotion and so on. I fully
sympathize with that view. But, Sir, I do not understand why
it should be difficult for Government to place these officers480 under the480 school boards at least for the purpose of
disciplinary control. I do not understand how the smooth working of the local
board machinery as contemplated in this Bill can be secured unless the
amendment which I am suggesting is given effect to. I should like
to illustrate what I have to say by reference to what has happened under the Government
of India Act. I would take for illustration the position of the members of
the Indian Civil Service. 560
The members of the Indian Civil Service are appointed by the Secretary of
State. At the time when the Montagu-Chelmsford Report was
made, I think those who have read it, will realize that one of the
greatest difficulties that was felt600 at the time in transferring effective
control to ministers was just the opposition of the members of the Indian Civil
Service. The contention of the members of the Indian Civil Service was that, as
they were appointed640 by the
Secretary of State and not by the ministers who were going to take office under
the then contemplated reforms, they protested that they could not subject
themselves to any control by ministers.
On the other hand,
those who were upholding the cause of transferring effective power
to Indian ministers decided that there could be no effective transfer
of power to700 the Indian
ministers unless the Indian ministers had effective power of controlling the
Indian Civil Service members who were the instrumentality720 of the administration. For a long
time, this tussle was going on, and as a matter of compromise it was decided,
as a result of the report of the Lee Commission, that the via media
should be the via media which I am suggesting by my amendment. As per the
Classification Rules, it was provided that five different kinds of
punishments might be levied by the Ministers against a recalcitrant
I.C.S. man who refused to obey the800
orders of the Ministers. The punishments that were prescribed and which the
Indian Ministers could exercise under those rules were censure, reduction,
stopping of promotion, transfer and dismissal. The civil servant at
the same time was given a right of appeal if he840 felt that a punishment had been
inflicted upon him by the Minister which was not proper, which was unjust, or
which was based upon racial antagonism. The civil servant would
take his appeal to the Governor and finally to the Secretary of State and
challenge the order of punishment passed by the Minister. In this way
the two contending points of view, namely, no control, and absolute control,
were brought to a common meeting point. The formula that was devised was that
the civil servants should remain servants of the Secretary of State, liable to
be dismissed by the authority who appointed them, but during the period that
they were working as servants in the department, they should be960 subject to the disciplinary control of
the Minister in charge of the department.
Sir, the amendment which I have tabled merely980 gives effect to the formula that I
have just mentioned. It does not take away the right of the Minister to appoint;
it does not take away the right of the Minister to dismiss an administrative
officer; nor does the amendment say that during the period that the
administrative officer is serving under a school board he shall be
regarded as the servant of the school board. The amendment is of a very limited
character; it merely says that during the period that he is working as
the administrative officer of the school board, the school board shall have
disciplinary1080 control. Further,
what kind of punishment the school board shall levy, and what is the
nature of the appeal that the administrative officer is to have, are still
matters which by my amendment are left to the Government to prescribe1120 by rules. I do not say that this or
that kind of punishment may be inflicted upon the administrative officer by the
school board; I do not say that this or that alone should be the right of
appeal. The nature of punishment, the extent of appeal etc. is left to the
discretion of the Government to provide for by rules. All that the
amendment does is to ensure that during the period that he is working, he shall
feel1200 that the school board
has control over him. If we do not give even this little power to the
school board, I do not quite understand how an administrative officer will
feel, by the necessities of the case, that he is really the servant of
the school board. I ask the honourable Prime Minister; supposing he
himself had no such power1260
over the civil servant that was working under him, if he could not
punish him for any disobedience on his1280
part, what would be the state of his own department? I submit that in
the interest of smooth working, at least this much must be given to the school
board in order that the administrative officer shall feel that he is
bound to carry out the just and lawful order of the school board. With
these words, I commend my amendment to the House.
Mr. President,
I have listened with very great interest to the speech delivered by the honourable
Minister in charge of this Bill. Sir, I must also say that I have
listened to it with very grave concern. I am sure there can be no
two opinions on the fact that this Bill deals with some very vital
issues. It not only deals with the question of self-government in so far as it
affects the civic amenities of the rural population of this Presidency,
but it also affects the question of the life, liberty and property of1440 the rural population. Having regard to
these vital issues involved in this Bill, I am bound to say that the
honourable Minister, in justice to all the interests concerned, ought to have
given a longer period for the consideration of the implications involved
in this Bill. Sir, he has chosen to satisfy his conscience by barely complying
with the requirements of the law by allowing seven days to pass before the Bill
was brought for consideration. May I say that in my opinion not only
seven days but seven months are necessary for the consideration of this Bill?
I suggest that there would be nothing wrong even now in the honourable
Minister sending this Bill for circulation in order to elicit the opinion of
the general public on the issues involved in this Bill. I would request him
with all due respect to adopt that course, but if he does not, I would like to
address to him two other1600
considerations which, in my opinion, are very important considerations.
