On March 24, 1946 cabinet mission with its 3 members in all reached Delhi. The mission presented its report to the newly established British government on May 16,1946. In the plan it was said, “under present conditions, direct Adult Voting is an impossible task. So the legislatures formed according to Indian Government Act 1935 should be used as the electoral institution of provincial legislature.” According to the Cabinet Mission Proposal, the constituent assembly was formed in November 1946.
Its main characteristics were as follows:
According to cabinet plan, There were total 389 members out the them 292 members were elected from Provincial Legislative Assemblies, 93 members represented the Indian princely states, and 4 members represented the chief commissioners provinces.
- The basis of divisions of seats was, “Population”. Roughly one member was chosen out of 10 lakh of population.
- The provinces were allotted the seats on the basis of their population and the representatives from several communities were to come according to their population. There were three groups of members General, Muslims and Sikhs (only in Punjab).
- The representatives from different communities were chosen according to proportional system of population. The communal members were chosen on the basis of their communal voters.
- The members of Indian Princely states were nominated by the heads of their related state.
- There was separate arrangement for provincial constitutions
The process of the formation of the Constituent Assembly:
The constitution of the Constituent Assembly was completed in two steps:
First step:
Under first step, in July 1946, elections were held for 296 seats allotted for Provinces. The Congress won 208 seats and the Muslim League bagged 73 seats. On November 20, 1946, the Viceroy invited the elected representatives to attend the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly to be held on December 9,1946. At first, the Muslim League accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan.
In the meantime British Government released a statement on December 6, 1946, which had adverse results. Muslim League shortly demanded for a separate Constituent Assembly for Pakistan and it boycotted the meeting of the Constituent Assembly. On June 1947, as a result of Mountbatten plan, Indians lost the Muslim Majority Regions. Due to this, Partition of India become editable. Fundamental and executive revolutionary changes were seen in the Constituent Assembly.
Second step:
In the second step, India was partitioned according to Mountbatten plan.The membership of Constituent Assembly fell down to 324, out of which 235 seats were allotted for provinces and 89 seats were for Indian princely states. Punjab and Bengal provinces were divided into two parts each. Elected representatives took oath on July 14, 1947 and then took their seats in the Constituent Assembly.
For the procedure of the election of the representatives from Indian princely states, it was decided that the percentage of these members might not be more than 50% of total seats. For princely states the number of seats was decided several times before and after India got independence.
On November 26,1949, the great task of framing the constitution of India was completed by the Assembly. It is notable that the representatives from Hyderabad state did not join it at the last moment. In the same way, besides 235 representatives from provinces, only 73 representatives of Indian princely states attended the Constituent Assembly. Only these 308 members signed on the final original draft of Indian Constitution.
