02041951 Text of the speech made by Sir Benegal N. Rau {India) in the Security Council Meeting No. 540 held on 2 April 1951.
02041951 Text of the speech made by Sir Benegal N. Rau {India) in the Security Council Meeting No. 540 held on 2 April 1951.
I ask for the ruling of the President as to whether it is permitted at this stage to go into these matters. If they are already on record, it is hardly necessary now to call our attention again to them.
Strictly speaking, the representative of Pakistan has been invited to the table under rule 37 which reads as follows:
"Any Member of the United Nations which is not a member of the Security Council may be invited, as the result of a decision of the Security Council, to participate, without vote, in the discussion of any question brought before the Security Council--"
As the President pointed out, it was under that rule that he acted in inviting the representative of Pakistan to the table.
The discussion of the India-Pakistan question, as particularized in our agenda, was closed when the vote was taken. At this stage, even a member of the Security Council does not have the right to make any further address except possibly for the purpose of explaining his vote. Therefore, in inviting the representative of Pakistan to the table, the Council gave him a right which even a member of the Council does not enjoy : to make a speech other than for the purpose of explaining his vote. Pakistan has no vote to explain. Having been allowed an opportunity to state his government's views, I submit to the President that the representative of Pakistan should confine himself strictly to that purpose. It would not be in order for him to go into matters of controversy which, if he had so chosen, he could have entered into before the vote was taken.