Petitions

Bombay Civil Liberties Union

28 January 1949

.

Remarks

N.M. Joshi, President of the Bombay Civil Liberties Union, wrote to the Secretary of the Constituent Assembly on 28 January 1949 from the Servants of India Society’s Home, Girgaum, Bombay. The letter enclosed a resolution passed by the Bombay Provincial Civil Liberties Conference at its meeting on 2 January 1949, and requested that it be placed before the President of the Constituent Assembly.

The resolution listed nine fundamental rights that the Conference wanted guaranteed to every citizen without any qualification: freedom of thought, speech and expression; right of assembly; freedom of association; freedom to move, reside, and settle anywhere in Indian territory and to emigrate; freedom to practise any profession, trade, or calling; freedom of person and the right to habeas corpus; the right to work or maintenance; the right to strike and peaceful picketing; and freedom of conscience.

The Conference stated that the draft Constitution as it stood did not guarantee these rights but had rendered them virtually nugatory through restrictive qualifications and emergency provisions. Everything in the draft repugnant to or inconsistent with the enjoyment of these rights should be deleted.

The resolution is terse, taking up barely a page, but its position is uncompromising: fundamental rights without qualification.

CAP 16.1

BOMBAY CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION

Telephone : 40522

SERVANTS OF INDIA
SOCIETY’S HOME,
GIRGAUM, BOMBAY

President:
N. M. JOSHI

January 28, 1949.

To
The Secretary,
Constituent Assembly,
New Delhi

CAP 16.2

To 

The Secretary,
Constitutent Assembly,
New Delhi 

CAP 16.3

Dear Sir:  

I am enclosing herewith a copy of a resolution passed by the Bombay Provincial Civil Liberties Conference at its meeting held on 2nd January 1949 on the subject of Fundamental Rights.   I request that the resolution may be placed before the President of the Constitutent Assembly for sympathetic consideration by the Constitutent Assembly at its next session.  

CAP 16.4

Thanking you,  

Yours faithfully, 

 

N.M.Joshi
President  

Encl: 1  

CAP 16.5

FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS

In the considered opinion of this Conference, the following Fundamental Rights should be guaranteed to every citizen by the Constitution without any qualification :-

  1. Freedom of Thought, Speech and Expression ;
  2. Right of assembly ;
  3. Freedom of Association ;
  4. Freedom to move freely, to reside and to settle in any part of the Indian territory and the right to emigrate ;
  5. Freedom to practice any profession, trade or calling;
  6. Freedom of Person and right to the writ of Habaes Corpus ;
  7. Right to work or maintenance ; and
  8. Right to strike and peaceful picketting;
  9. Freedom of Conscience.
CAP 16.6

2. The Conference regrets that the present draft Constitution including the part so far adopted, does not guarantee these Fundamental Rights but has virtually rendered them nugatory by various restrictive qualifications and provisions regending emergency measures and so the Conference urges that anything in the draft Constitution repugnant to or inconsistent with the enjoyment of these Fundamental Rights by the citizens should be deleted. 

CAP 16.7

<Signature>