Admission or establishment of new States

Article 2, Draft Constitution of India 1948

Parliament may, from time to time, by law admit into the Union, or establish, new States on such terms and conditions as it thinks fit.

Article 2, Constitution of India 1950

Parliament may by law admit into the Union, or establish, new States on such terms and conditions as it thinks fit.

Draft Article 2 (Article 2) was debated on 5 and 17 November 1948. It empowered Parliament to make laws to admit or establish states to the Union.

One member believed that ‘State’ should be clearly defined in order to ensure uniform interpretation in the Constitution. He argued that the Draft Constitution in its current form uses ‘state’ indiscriminately in myriad forms. However, ‘State’ must be defined to always connote ‘a kind of sovereignty’. He proposed to retain old expressions such as ‘Provinces, Indian States and Chief Commissioners’ Provinces’.

He argued that Draft Articles 2 and 3 overlap and moved a proposal to substitute them with a single Article. He opined that the purpose of Draft Article 2 was achieved by Draft Article 3 (Article 3), and having two separate Articles was redundant. However, his amendment was not accepted.

The Assembly adopted Draft Article 2 without amendments on 17 November 1948.