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The Constituent Assembly formally began its task of framing the Constitution of India on the 13th of December, 1946 with Jawaharlal Nehru moving the Objectives Resolution. The purpose behind the resolution was to “… proclaim India as an Independent Sovereign Republic and to draw up for her future governance a Constitution.” The resolution put forth broad principles that would informthe Constituent Assembly about the drawing up of various provi...

After the first session of the Constituent Assembly, a number of committees were formed to look into and report on various aspects of the Constitution. The Committees that were appointed were - Advisory Committee on Fundamental Rights and Minority Rights (which consisted of the Sub-Committee on Fundamental Rights and the Sub-Committee on Minority Rights), Union Powers Committee, Union Constitution Committee and the Provincial Constitution Comm...

B.N Rau, the Constitutional Advisor to the Assembly, on the basis of the reports of the various subcommittees and discussions in the assembly mentioned in the previous stage, prepared a Draft Constitution. The Draft Constitution was ready by October 1946. This was to be scrutinized by the Drafting Committee

The Drafting Committee began to scrutinize the Draft Constitution prepared by the Constitutional Advisor, along with other notes, reports and memoranda on October 27th, 1947. It proceeded to make changes and it finally submitted its Draft Constitution to the President of the Assembly on the 21st of February 1948.

The Draft Constitution once submitted to the President of the Constituent Assembly was published and circulated among the public. Many comments, critiques, and suggestions were received, which were then scrutinized by a Special Committee of members of the Union Constitution Committee, Provincial Constitution Committee and the Union Powers Committee and the Drafting Committee itself. The Drafting Committee, taking into account comments, critiqu...

The Draft Constitution was presented to the Constituent Assembly on November 4th,1948 by the Chairman of the Drafting Committee, B.R. Ambedkar. The Constituent Assembly proceeded to take up, clause by clause, every part of the Draft Constitution for debate. Members of the assembly often moved their own amendments to the Draft Constitution seeking to change or drop specific articles or clauses. The most crucial and voluminous debates took plac...

After the debates around the Draft Constitution concluded, the Drafting Committee then went on to revise the Draft Constitution according to decisions taken in the Constituent Assembly along with other tasks such as renumbering of articles, minor changes in language, dropping and insertion of clauses and articles. The revised Draft Constitution was submitted to the President of the Constituent Assembly on the 3rd of Nov 1949 , and then introd...

The Assembly undertook a second reading of the Draft Constitution (revised). While many amendments were moved, most of them were negated.

The third reading of the Draft Constitution began with Ambedkar moving a motion “that the Constitution as settled by the assembly be passed”. In this phase, there were few substantive debates. Most of the speeches involved general comments on the Constitution as whole. While some members expressed their satisfaction, others expressed concerns.

On the 26th of November, 1949, the third reading came to an end with the assembly voting for the motion that Ambedkar had proposed of adopting the Constitution. The Constitution was then finally signed by members of the Constituent Assembly on 24th January 1950 and came into effect on the 26th of January, 1950.