Drafting Committee of Indian Constitution, Members, Chairman

The Drafting Committee had seven members & B.R Ambedkar was elected as its Chairman of the Drafting Committee. Know all about Members of the Drafting Committee & Working for the UPSC exam.

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Drafting Committee

The drafting committee was the most important committee compared to the other committees of the Constituent Assembly. It was set up on 29th August 1947, by the constituent assembly to scrutinize the draft of the text of the Constitution of India prepared by the Constitutional Adviser in order to give effect to the decision taken by the Constituent Assembly and to submit to the assembly for consideration.

The Drafting Committee had seven members that included,

Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar,
N. Gopalaswami;
B.R. Ambedkar,
K.M Munshi,
Mohammad Saadulla,
B.L. Mitter and
D.P. Khaitan.

At the first meeting that took place on 30th August 1947, B.R. Ambedkar was elected as the Chairman of the Drafting Committee.

Read about: 42nd Amendment of Indian Constitution

Members of the Drafting Committee

The Drafting Committee had seven members that are described below:

Members of the Drafting Committee	Important Facts
Alladi Krishnaswami Iyer	He was an Indian barrister who served in the Constituent Assembly, which drafted the Indian Constitution. According to B.R. Ambedkar, Alladi Krishnaswamy Iyer was the chief architect of the Constitution of India and chairperson of the committee.
N. Gopalaswami	He was elected in 1946 to serve in the Constituent Assembly of India, which met in 1946 and was presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru. He was chosen to serve on the Indian Constitution’s thirteen-person Drafting Committee. He was a Minister without Portfolio in Jawaharlal Nehru’s 1st cabinet from 1947 to 1948. Then, from 1948 to 1952, he worked as Minister of Railways and Transport, and then from 1952 to 1953, he was Minister of Defense.
B.R. Ambedkar	He was the first Minister of Law and Justice of independent India, the chief draftsman of the Constitution of India, and a founding father of the Republic of India.
K.M Munshi	He has a reputable literary reputation in Gujarati. In 1938, he established the educational trust Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. He served on a number of committees of the Constituent Assembly, including the Drafting Committee, Advisory Committee, and Sub-Committee on Fundamental Rights. In his draft on fundamental rights, he argued that progressive rights should be included.
Mohammad Saadulla	Saadulla was elected to the Constituent Assembly from Assam, out of 28 Muslim League members who attended the proceedings of the Assembly, he was one of them and he was the only Muslim League member to sit in the Drafting Committee. His interventions in the Assembly mostly revolved around securing financial stability, and minority rights of Assam.
B.L. Mitter	Due to their bad health, he was replaced by N Madhav Rao as a member of the Drafting Committee.
D.P. Khaitan	He was the prominent statesman DP Khaitan was being one of the architects of the Indian Constitution. During the assembly proceedings, he intervened on the issue of freedom of speech. After his death, TT Krishnamachari became a member of the drafting committee.

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Drafting Committee 1948

On February 21, 1948, the Drafting Committee submitted the Draft Constitution of India to the President of the Constituent Assembly. Four months earlier, they had received a draft prepared by constitutional adviser B.N. Rau, which included decisions from various committees.
The Draft Constitution contained 315 articles organized into eighteen parts and eight schedules, covering topics like government structure, center-state relations, and citizens’ rights. Where the Draft differed from Rau’s version or where there were unclear points, the committee included footnotes for clarification.
This Draft was the first publicly available blueprint of the Indian Constitution and was circulated widely for feedback from Assembly members, provincial governments, central ministries, and the public. The Drafting Committee reviewed suggestions in March and October 1948.
On November 4, 1948, B.R. Ambedkar introduced the Draft in the Assembly, addressing some controversies. Reactions were mixed; while some members praised it, others were disappointed, particularly because it did not incorporate Panchayati Raj principles.
From November 15, 1948, the Assembly debated the Draft article by article, discussing numerous amendments until October 17, 1949. The Drafting Committee revised the Draft based on these discussions, presenting a second version on November 14, 1949.
The debates over the Draft constituted a significant part of the Constituent Assembly’s work, with 114 out of 165 sittings dedicated to it. The Draft Constitution was ultimately adopted on November 26, 1949, becoming the Constitution of India.

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Drafting Committee Final Draft of the Constitution

Each member of the Constituent Assembly has signed two copies of the newly made Indian Constitution, one in Hindi and the other in English. The original constitution is hand-written, with each page decorated by renowned artists from Shantiniketan including Beohar Rammanohar Sinha and Nandalal Bose. Its calligrapher was Prem Behari Narain Raizada.

The Constitution of India was published in Dehradun and photolithography was done at the Survey of India. Production of the original Indian Constitution took nearly five years. The estimated cost of the Constituent Assembly was ₹6.3 crore. The constitution has had more than 100 amendments since has been enacted.

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