Constituent Assembly Debates. Official Report Friday 20th May 1949

If this is inserted the public at large and everybody will feel that the Constitution itself recognises the existence of the Leader of the Opposition and that when he criticises or attacks the Government and carries on agitation in the countryside and rouses public opinion against the party's misdeeds really he is doing a duty assigned to him by the Constitution. [...] Under the adapted Government of India Act as well as under the Parliament Act the Constituent Assembly functions as the legislature of the Dominion of India for certain purposes The only body that exists today'is the Constituent Assembly and the new Members of the Parliament of India would prefer to derive their successio i froni the Constituent Assembly rather than from the noexisting Legis [...] salaries to Members in the British ParliamentBRAM OONSTITIMION 163 and also the creation of a status to the Leader of the Opposition and the payment of the salary to the Leader of the Opposition. [...] If there is a healthy opposition and for want of separate provision for his maintenance the Leader of the Opposition is not able to devote all the time and attentio i that is necessary in the interests of public welfare and democracy in the interests of parlianientary administration and in the interests of bringing to the notice of the public the defects in the administration then there is time [...] But so far as our Constitution is concerned it is a written constitution and When we have made a special mention about the pay of Ministers and the pay and allowances of members in our Consttution and when you make no mention of the pay of the Leader of the Opposition then the acknowledged rule of interpretation would be that the -Constitution does not desire to give the Leader of the Oppos