Page "Constitution of India" Paragraph 15

On the 14 August 1947 meeting of the Assembly, a proposal for forming various committees was presented.

Such committees included a Committee on Fundamental Rights, the Union Powers Committee and Union Constitution Committee.

On 29 August 1947, the Drafting Committee was appointed, with Dr B. R. Ambedkar as the Chairman along with six other members assisted by a constitutional advisor.

These members were Kanaiyalal Maneklal Munshi ( K M Munshi, Ex-Home Minister, Bombay ), Alladi Krishnaswamy Iyer ( Ex-Advocate General, Madras State ), N Gopalaswami Ayengar ( Ex-Prime Minister, J & K and later member of Nehru Cabinet ), B L Mitter ( Ex-Advocate General, India ), Md.

Saadullah ( Ex-Chief Minister of Assam, Muslim League member ) and D P Khaitan ( Scion of Khaitan Business family and a renowned lawyer ).

The constitutional advisor was Sir Benegal Narsing Rau ( who became First Indian Judge in International Court of Justice, 1950 – 54 ).

Later B L Mitter resigned and was replaced by Madhav Rao ( Legal Advisor of Maharaja of Vadodara ).

Owing to death of D P Khaitan, T T Krishnamachari was chosen to be included in the drafting committee.

A Draft Constitution was prepared by the committee and submitted to the Assembly on 4 November 1947.

Draft constitution was debated and over 2000 amendments were moved over a period of two years.

Finally on 26 Nov. 1949, the process was completed and Constituent assembly adopted the constitution.

284 members signed the document and the process of constitution making was complete.

The architects of Indian constitution were most heavily influenced by the British model of parliamentary democracy.

In addition, a number of principles were adopted from the Constitution of the United States of America, including the separation of powers among the major branches of government, the establishment of a supreme court.

The principles adopted from Canada were Unitary government with strong center and also distribution of powers between central government and provinces along with placing residuary powers with central government. From Ireland, directive principle of state policy was adopted.

From Germany the principle of suspension of fundamental rights during emergency was adopted.

From Australia the principle of Concurrent list and Language of preamble was adopted.

The Assembly met in sessions open to the public, for 166 days, spread over a period of 2 years, 11 months and 18 days before adopting the Constitution, the 308 members of the Assembly signed two copies of the document ( one each in Hindi and English ) on 24 January 1950.

The original Constitution of India is hand-written with beautiful calligraphy, each page beautified and decorated by artists from Shantiniketan including Beohar Rammanohar Sinha and Nandalal Bose.

Two days later, on 26 January 1950, the Constitution of India became the law of all the States and territories of India.

Rs.

1, 00, 00, 000 was official estimate of expenditure on constituent assembly.

The Constitution has undergone many amendments since its enactment.