Dear Sir,

The Advisory Committee on Minorities, Fundamental Rights, etc. in their report dated the 8th of August 1947, had recommended certain political safeguards for Minorities. These were accepted by the Constituent Assembly during the August 1947 session and have been embodied in Part XTV of the Draft Constitution. According to these recommendations, all elections to the Central and Provincial Legislatures were to be held on the basis of joint electorates with reservation of seats for certain specified minorities on their population basis. This reservation was to be for a period of ten years at the end of which the position was to be reconsidered. There was to be no weightage, but members of the minority communities for whom/seats were ‘reserved were to have the right to contest general seats. The communities for whom seats were to be reserved were Muslims, Scheduled Castes and Indian Christians, the latter only so far as the Central-Legislature and the Provincial Legislatures of Madras and Bombay are concerned.