§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Schedule be the Second Schedule to the Bill."
175§ Mr. R. A. ButlerI should like to ask what will be the position when the boundary commissions have reported now that the Government have introduced their Amendment making an award by the boundary commissions the law of the land? Is it because this Bill is amended that the new First and Second Schedules are introduced giving us the exact boundaries. Will there be any method by which we can have indicated to us in statutory form what actually constitutes the boundaries between the two divided parts of India? This is a very big Bill, a great deal of which is provisional and some of it is dependent on referendums, the result of one of which we had earlier today. This is a provisional Schedule for the provisional West Punjab Province. It would be helpful if, in some way or other, we could have an Amendment to this Bill, or have indicated to us in Parliament what the official boundaries are as a result of the boundary commissions' work.
§ Mr. A. HendersonIt will not be possible to put words in statutory form, but it will be possible—and the intention is that it will be done—to report the results of the boundary commissions to Parliament.
§ Mr. ButlerI would like to ask what will the position of the Schedule be then. It will, in fact, be inoperative. It will be a provisional Schedule, and, although the main districts will be there, the exact boundaries will not be there, and at the same time the boundary commissions might recommend the exclusion of a district, and we would have an inaccurate Statute.
§ Mr. A. HendersonThe point is that these two Schedules are provisional for the purpose of the division, and are themselves governed by Clauses 3 and 4, which provide for the setting up of boundary commissions for the Punjab and Bengal, and provide that the awards or the reports of these boundary commissions shall be taken as the new boundaries of these Provinces.
§ Question put, and agreed to.