DEMAND FOR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY :

•      It was in 1934 that the idea of a Constituent Assembly for India was put forward for the first time by M. N. Roy, a pioneer of communist movement in India.

•      In 1935, the Indian National Congress (INC), for the first time, officially demanded a Constituent Assembly to frame the Constitution of India.

•      The demand was finally accepted in principle by the British Government in what is known as the ‘August Offer’ of 1940. In 1942, Sir Stafford Cripps, a member of the cabinet, came to India.

•      Two separate Constituent Assemblies. Finally, a Cabinet Mission1 was sent to India. While it rejected the idea of two Constituent Assemblies, it put forth a scheme for the Constituent Assembly which more or less satisfied the Muslim League.

•      The Constituent Assembly was constituted in November 1946 under the scheme formulated by the Cabinet Mission Plan. The features of the scheme were:

  1. The total strength of the Constituent Assembly was to be 389. Of these, 296 seats were to be allotted to British India and 93 seats to the Princely States.
  2. Each province and princely state (or group of states in case of small states) were to be allotted seats in proportion to their respective population. Roughly, one seat was to be allotted for every million population.
  3. Seats allocated to each British province were to be divided among the three principal communities—Muslims, Sikhs and general.
  4. The representatives of each community were to be elected by members of that community in the provincial legislative assembly and voting was to be by the method of proportional representation by means of single transferable vote.
  5.  The representatives of princely states were to be nominated by the heads of the princely states.

ELECTIONS :

•      It is thus clear that the Constituent Assembly was to be a partly elected and partly nominated body. The elections to the Constituent Assembly (for 296 seats allotted to the British Indian Provinces) were held in July–August 1946.

•      The Indian National Congress won 208 seats, the Muslim League 73 seats, and the small groups and independents got the remaining 15 seats.

•      The Constituent Assembly held its first meeting on December 9, 1946. The Muslim League boycotted the meeting and insisted on a separate state of Pakistan.

•      The meeting was thus attended by only 211 members. Dr Sachchidanand Sinha, the oldest member, was elected as the temporary President of the Assembly, following the French practice. Later, Dr. Rajendra Prasad was elected as the President of the Assembly.

OBJECTIVE RSOLUTION :

•      On December 13, 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru moved the historic ‘Objectives Resolution’ in the Assembly. It laid down the fundamentals and philosophy of the constitutional structure. It read: 

  1. “This Constituent Assembly declares its firm and solemn resolve to proclaim India as an Independent Sovereign Republic and to draw up for her future governance a Constitution:
  2. W herein the territories that now comprise British India, the territories that now form the Indian States.
  3. wherein the said territories, whether with their present boundaries or with such others as may be determined by the Constituent Assembly
  4. wherein all power and authority of the Sovereign Independent India, its constituent parts and organs of Government are derived from the people;
  5. wherein shall be guaranteed and secured to all the people of India justice, social, economic and political; equality of status of opportunity, and before the law; freedom of thought, expression, belief, faith, worship, vocation, associatioand
  6. wherein n and action, subject to law and public morality; adequate safeguards shall be provided for minorities, backward and tribal areas, and depressed and other backward classes; and
  7. whereby shall be maintained the integrity of the territory of the
  8. Republic and its sovereign rights on land, sea and air
  9. This ancient land attains its rightful and honoured place in the world and makes its full and willing contribution to the promotion of world peace and the welfare of mankind.”
  10. This Resolution was unanimously adopted by the Assembly on January 22, 1947.
  11. On April 28, 1947, representatives of the six states were part of the Assembly. After the acceptance of the Mountbatten Plan of June 3, 1947 for a partition of the country, the representatives of most of the other princely states took their seats in the Assembly.
  12. The members of the Muslim League from the Indian Dominion also entered the Assembly.

CHANGES BY THE INDEPENDENCE ACT :

•      The Indian Independence Act of 1947 made the following three changes in the position of the Assembly:

  1. The Assembly was made a fully sovereign body, which could frame any Constitution it pleased. The act empowered the Assembly to abrogate or alter any law made by the British Parliament in relation to India.
  2. The Assembly also became a legislative body. The Assembly met as the Constituent body it was chaired by Dr. Rajendra Prasad and when it met as the legislative body it was chaired by G V Mavlankar.
  3. The Muslim League members (hailing from the areas7 included in the Pakistan) withdrew from the Constituent Assembly for India. Consequently, the total strength of the Assembly came down to 299 as against 389 originally fixed in 1946 under the Cabinet Mission Plan.
  4. It ratified the India’s membership of the Commonwealth in May 1949.
  5. It adopted the national flag on July 22, 1947.
  6. It adopted the national anthem on January 24, 1950.
  7. It adopted the national song on January 24, 1950.
  8. It elected Dr Rajendra Prasad as the first President of India on January 24, 1950.
  • In all, the Constituent Assembly had 11 sessions over two years, 11 months and 18 days. The Constitution- makers had gone through the constitutions of about 60 countries, and the Draft Constitution was considered for 114 days. The total expenditure incurred on making the Constitution amounted to ` 64 lakh.
  • On January 24, 1950, the Constituent Assembly held its final session. It, however, did not end, and continued as the provisional parliament of India from January 26, 1950 till the formation of new Parliament8 after the first general elections in 1951–52.

COMMITTEES OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY :

Major Committees

  1. Union Powers Committee – Jawaharlal Nehru
  2. Union Constitution Committee – Jawaharlal Nehru
  3. Provincial Constitution Committee – Sardar Patel
  4. Drafting Committee – Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
  5. Advisory Committee on Fundamental Rights, Minorities and Tribal and Excluded Areas – Sardar Patel
  6. Rules of Procedure Committee – Dr. Rajendra Prasad
  7. States Committee (Committee for Negotiating with States) – Jawaharlal Nehru
  8. Steering Committee – Dr. Rajendra Prasad

DRAFTING COMMITTEE :

•      Among all the committees of the Constituent Assembly, the most important committee was the Drafting Committee set up on August 29, 1947. It consisted of seven members. They were:

  1. Dr B R Ambedkar (Chairman)
  2. N Gopalaswamy Ayyangar
  3. Alladi Krishnaswamy Ayyar
  4. Dr K M Munshi
  5. Syed Mohammad Saadullah
  6. N Madhava Rau (He replaced B L Mitter who resigned
  7. due to ill-health)
  8. T T Krishnamachari (He replaced D P Khaitan who died in 1948)

·         The Drafting Committee, after taking into consideration the proposals of the various committees, prepared the first draft of the Constitution of India, which was published in February 1948.

·         The people of India were given eight months to discuss the draft and propose amendments. In the light of the public comments, criticisms and suggestions, the Drafting Committee prepared a second draft, which was published in October 1948.

·         The Drafting Committee took less than six months to prepare its draft. all it sat only for 141 days.

ENACTMENT OF CONSTITUTION :

•      Dr B R Ambedkar introduced the final draft of the Constitution in the Assembly on November 4, 1948 (first reading). The Assembly had a general discussion on it for five days (till November 9, 1948).

•      The second reading (clause by clause consid-eration) started on November 15, 1948 and ended on October 17, 1949. During this stage, as many as 7653 amendments were proposed and 2473 were actually discussed in the Assembly.

•      The third reading of the draft started on November 14, 1949. Dr B R Ambedkar moved a motion—‘the Constitution as settled by the Assembly be passed’.

•      The motion on Draft Constitution was declared as passed on November 26, 1949, and received the signatures of the members and the president. Out of a total 299 members of the Assembly, only 284 were actually present on that day and signed the Constitution.

•      The Constitution as adopted on November 26, 1949, contained a Preamble, 395 Articles and 8 Schedules.

•      The Preamble was enacted after the entire Constitution was already enacted. Dr B R Ambedkar, the then Law Minister, piloted the Draft Constitution in the Assembly.

•      January 26 was specifically chosen as the ‘date of commencement’ of the Constitution because of its historical importance. It was on this day in 1930 that Purna Swaraj day was celebrated, following the resolution of the Lahore Session (December 1929) of the INC.

<<<<<<<<<<<<DOWNLOAD PDF : CLICK HERE>>>>>>>>>>>>