Bombay Civil Liberties Union

BOMBAY CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION

T[unclear]phone : 40522

SERVANTS OF INDIA
SOCIETY’S HOME,
GIRGAUM, BOMBAY

President:
N. M. JOSHI

January 28, 1949.

To
The Secretary,
Constitutent Assembly,
New Delhi

To 

The Secretary,
Constitutent Assembly,
New Delhi 

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.  

Thanking you,  

Yours faithfully, 

N.M.Joshi
President  

Encl: 1  

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.

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.