Indian Polity

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Author: Laxmikanth, M

  • In 1765, the Company, which till now had purely trading functions obtained the ‘diwani’ (i.e., rights over revenue and civil justice) of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.1

  • With Independence came the need of a Constitution. As suggested by M N Roy (a pioneer of communist movement in India and an advocate of Radical Democratism) in 1934, a Constituent Assembly was formed for this purpose in 1946 and on January 26, 1950, the Constitution came into being.

  • The first such Governor-General was Lord Warren Hastings.

  • 3.It provided for the establishment of a Supreme Court at Calcutta (1774) comprising one chief justice and three other judges.

  • Lord William Bentick was the first governor-general of India.

  • the Macaulay Committee (the Committee on the Indian Civil Service) was appointed in 1854.

  • The act known as the Act for the Good Government of India, abolished the East India Company, and transferred the powers of government, territories and revenues to the British Crown.

  • 1.It provided that India henceforth was to be governed by, and in the name of, Her Majesty. It changed the designation of the Governor-General of India to that of Viceroy of India.

  • Lord Canning thus became the first Viceroy of India.

  • In 1862, Lord Canning, the then viceroy, nominated three Indians to his legislative council—the Raja of Benaras, the Maharaja of Patiala and Sir Dinkar Rao.

  • Act of 1909 This Act is also known as Morley-Minto Reforms (Lord Morley was the then Secretary of State for India and Lord Minto was the then Viceroy of India).

  • Satyendra Prasad Sinha became the first Indian to join the Viceroy’s Executive Council.

  • Simon Commission In November 1927 itself (i.e., 2 years before the schedule), the British Government announced the appointment a seven-member statutory commission under the chairmanship of Sir John Simon to report on the condition of India under its new Constitution.

  • All the members of the commission were British and hence, all the parties boycotted the commission.

  • 8.It provided for the establishment of a Reserve Bank of India to control the currency and credit of the country.

  • 5.The system of Budget was introduced in British India in 1860.

  • In 1942, Sir Stafford Cripps, a member of the cabinet, came to India with a draft proposal of the British Government on the framing of an independent Constitution to be adopted after the World War II.

  • The elections to the Constituent Assembly (for 296 seats allotted to the British Indian Provinces) were held in July–August 1946.

  • The Assembly included all important personalities of India at that time, with the exception of Mahatma Gandhi and M A Jinnah.

  • The Constituent Assembly held its first meeting on December 9, 1946.

  • Whenever the Assembly met as the Constituent body it was chaired by Dr. Rajendra Prasad and when it met as the legislative body6, it was chaired by G V Mavlankar.

  • 2.It adopted the national flag on July 22, 1947. 3.It adopted the national anthem on January 24, 1950. 4.It adopted the national song on January 24, 1950. 5.It elected Dr Rajendra Prasad as the first President of India on January 24, 1950.

  • In fact, the 42nd Amendment Act (1976) is known as ‘Mini-Constitution’ due to the important and large number of changes made by it in various parts of the Constitution. However, in the Kesavananda Bharati case1 (1973), the Supreme Court ruled that the constituent power of Parliament under Article 368 does not enable it to alter the ‘basic structure’ of the Constitution.

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