With regard to commonwealth countries, if the government of India come into an arrangement with any commonwealth country and such an arrangement is notified and chapter is notified as being applicable to that country, then the procedure prescribed in chapter will apply to such a commonwealth country. That means there is no automatic application of this act with regard to any foreign country or with regard to any commonwealth country. The second that we have followed is that there must be a proper safeguard in the matter of extraditing criminals from this country who are sought to be extradited by their parent states on charges of criminal offences. On the question of democratisation, the local self-government ministers' conference in 1998 clearly recognised that, for reasons connected with security and the health of the troops, the areas where troops were quartered should be under the general control of the army authorities. The Patil committee too was of the view that cantonments were military stations primarily and not civil towns and that the cantonments should be fact maintain, as far as possible, in the foreseeable future, their original characteristic of military stations, considering all the circumstances Patil committee particularly noted that even amongst the civilian population of the cantonments there are substantial elements, often in a majority, who are apprehensive of the consequences of their transfer. I have explained the policy of the government regarding democratisation in the council of states in details and I should not like to weary this house by repeating the same. But I should like to mention just a few thing briefly. The committee submitted its report in november 2001 and made certain recommendations to the government.
