On 4th August 1949 regarding Article 248-B [old] – dealing with contingency fund at the Constituent Assembly Pandit Hirday Nath Kunzru spoke as follows:
“Article 248A require that all monies received for the Government of India shall be paid to a Fund called the Consolidated Fund of India and that no amount shall be taken out of this Consolidated Fund without express Parliamentary Authority. Now it has been found from time to time the expenditure vote by Parliament for a Department is not enough; it has to be exceeded for some reason or other. If the expenditure is incurred without Parliamentary authorization it will be illegal. But if the Executive awaits the sanction of the Legislature before incurring expenditure the Department concerned may be put to great inconvenience. Because the expenditure may be urgently and required and the inability of Government to make provision for it may be detrimental to the public interest it is therefore necessary that some means should be found of enabling Government to meet unforeseen expenditure not authorised by Parliament. I have proposed that for this purpose a Contingency Fund to be called Contingency Fund of India should be established. Parliament may fix the size of the Contingency Fund but when money has been put into this Fund, Executive can legally draw upon it meet such expenditure has not been authorised by Parliament but it is necessary. Of course this Contingency Fund do not absolve the Executive of the duty of bringing all excess expenditure to the notice of the House for its sanction. But in any case it will be a limited fund and if it is exhausted the Executive will have to come to the Legislature for sanction to replenished in either case there will be a full Parliamentary control over expenditure, a controlled that does not exist at the present time.”
Comment: Contingency Fund seems more powerful than the Consolidated Fund. The speech is a farsighted one as well as view looking beyond the future.