The Constituent Assembly (1946 – 1950)

      Ø  first met on 09 Dec 1946

Ø  Consisted of 389 members. 292 were elected from the Provinces, 93 were nominated by the Princely States, and 4 were nominated from the Chief Commissioners Provinces

      Ø  Dr. Sachidananda Sinha was the first President of the Constituent Assembly

Ø  The Preamble of the Constitution was a modification of the ‘Objective Resolution’ introduced Jawaharlal Nehru

     Ø  The Assembly appointed 22 committees

Ø  The most important of these committees was the Drafting Committee, set up in Aug 1947

Ø  The Drafting Committee had 7 members. B.R. Ambedkar was its Chairman

Ø  The Drafting Committee published the Draft Constitution in Feb 1948, which was adopted on 26 Nov 1949

Ø  The Constitution came into effect on 26 Jan 1950. However, certain provisions regarding citizenship, elections, provisional parliament and presidential election procedures came into effect earlier, on 26 Nov 1949.

Ø  26 Jan was chosen in significance of the informal ‘Independence Day’ observed in 1930

Ø  The term of the Constituent Assembly ended on 24 Jan 1950. However, it re-emerged as the Provisional Parliament on 26 Jan 1950, and remained so until the first Lok Sabha elections

Ø  The President of the Constituent Assembly, Rajendra Prasad, became the first President of India

Ø  Gandhi and Jinnah were not members of the Constituent Assembly