Sir, there is a history to this double membership and I shall only take a short time of this House in telling them as to how it occurred. When our Constituent Assembly was first elected, there was a Central Legislature functioning under the old Act in this country. Naturally at that time the only purpose that Members of the Constituent Assembly were expected to fulfill was that of framing the Constitution, but they were elected on a definite basis, viz., that there was to be one representative for every ten lakhs of people. Compared with that, the Central Assembly that existed then was a less representative body, as it was elected under the old Act and even consisted of nominated members. Therefore, Sir, naturally the two bodies were expected to work in the beginning separately, but things moved very fast in the political field in the country and the British decided to partition the country and quit. Power had to be transferred to some authority. Naturally the old Central Assembly was found as compared with this Constituent Assembly, to be not as representative as this body was. At that time, the most representative body in the country was this Constituent Assembly. Therefore it was decided that power should be transferred to this Constituent Assembly, and then the Independence Act was passed. The Indian Independence Act made provision that while continuing their work of framing a Constitution for the country, this body should also function as a legislative body, and provision for this was made in Section 8 of the Independence Act. Section 8, clause (1) says:
“In the case of each of the new Dominions, the powers of the Legislature of the Dominion shall, for the purpose of making provision as to the Constitution of the Dominion, be exercisable in the first instance by the Constituent Assembly of that Dominion, and references in this Act to the Legislature of the Dominion shall be construed accordingly.“