under the Basic Democracies Order, has been allotted, on an average, 10 elected and 5 nominated members. The basis of the allotment appears to be that 15 members are sufficient to represent one union. The indication is that the system of nomination in unions will be abolished, and the nominated element will be replaced by elected members. This again means that one union can be sufficiently represented by its 15 elected members. However, for the composition of an electoral college, it is immaterial whether or not the system of nomination in unions is replaced by election, the college being an organisation different from unions. What, however, is important is that the area under one union will be sufficiently represented by 15 persons. Taking this as a basis for the composition of an electoral college, the strength of an electoral college comes to 1, 20,000 in place of 80,000 hitherto fixed on the basis of 10 elected representatives per union on an average. Thus the said figure of 1, 20,000 appears to realistic in that while it has a positive basis, it is not unmanageable either. Therefore, the strength of the Electoral College should be fixed at 1, 20,000. For the purpose of maintaining parity of voters between the two wings in the case of Presidential election, the exact half of the said 1,20,000 electoral votes should be allotted to each wing.
According to Chapter 2 of Part VII of the Constitution, there shall be delimited as many electoral units in the country as there are members of an electoral college. This means that only one member shall be elected from one unit. On the basis of the total strength of the electoral college, there shall be one member for every 750 people on an average. In areas where there are concentrations of population particularly in cities, it may not be feasible to delimit such small electoral units for the simple reason that even two or three buildings together may have residents numbering 750 or more. Therefore, for facilitating the constitution of the Electoral College, we suggest that Chapter 2 of Part VII of the constitution should be suitably amended so as to permit delimitation of multi- member electoral units, wherever necessary.
In this connection, we may point out that there has been some misunderstanding with regard to the functions of an electoral college. Some witnesses including officials are under the impression that members of an electoral college shall be necessarily invested with the functions of local government and that they shall have to discharge such functions, in addition to their function or casting votes at an election. This impression is not correct. Under the Constitution, members of an electoral college are invested with the sole function of casting votes at an election or a referendum. But Article 158(4) of the Constitution provides that functions of local government as well may be conferred on members of an electoral college by law. This is merely an enabling provision. The correct position, therefore, is that, in addition to their normal function of casting votes, members of an electoral college shall be required to perform functions of local government only if such functions are conferred on them by law made for the purpose.
18. Qualification and disqualification of members of the electoral college. Every citizen of not less than 25 years of age who possesses the other qualifications prescribed in Article 157 of the Constitution and is not subject to any of the disqualifications mentioned in clause (2) of Article 103 thereof should be eligible for membership of the
