Page:White Paper on Indian States (1950).pdf/82

 other preparatory measures for conducting elections would have inevitably caused considerable delay, it was decided to fill the additional seats in the Provincial Legislature by nomination by the Governor-General. The distribution of assets and liabilities and the provision for the institution of suits follow the lines of the division of functions between the Centre and the Provinces.

170. A similar order known as the States' Merger (Chief Commissioners' Provinces) Order, 1949 (Appendix XLVII), was made applicable to the Centrally-merged States with effect from August 1, 1949. This Order provided for the Centrally-merged States being administered in all respects as if they were a Chief Commissioner's Province. In these States also, all laws including orders made under the Extra-Provincial Jurisdiction Act, which were operative at the commencement of the Order, were to continue in force until repealed or amended by competent authority but no orders could be made under the aforementioned Act after the issue of the Order. After the commencement of this Order, the Central Legislature alone could make laws for, or extend or apply laws to the newly-created Chief Commissioners' Provinces. The Chief Commissioners' Provinces which were created after August, 1949, were covered by another Order under section 290A issued on 22nd January 1950. (Appendix XLVIII).

171. In December 1949 Parliament passed an enactment (No. LIX of 1949) extending to the newly created Chief Commissioners' Provinces and the Provincially merged States the more important Central laws. So far as the Provincially merged States are concerned it was specified that only so much of the enactments shall apply to the merged States as extends to the absorbing Province and relates to matters with respect to which the Dominion Legislature has power to make laws for a Governor's Province. This enactment repealed the corresponding laws already in force in the areas in question either by means of orders under the Extra-Provincial Jurisdiction Act or by virtue of any other legislative power.

172. With the issue of the Order under Section 290A and the extension of the more important Central enactments, the position of the Provincially merged States became, to all intents and purposes, the same as that of Provinces. The process of assimilation in the Centrally-merged States also was greatly facilitated by the issue of this Order and the passing of the enactment. Considerable progress has been made in the newly created Chief Commissioners' Provinces in the direction of improving their administrative machinery. A brief account of the progress so far made in these Provinces and the Unions of States is given in the following paragraphs.