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Part XVI

Article 331

Representation of the Anglo-Indian Community in the House of the People

Notwithstanding anything in article 81, the President may, if he is of opinion that the Anglo-Indian community is not adequately represented in the House of the People, nominate not more than two members of that community to the House of the People.

VERSION 1

Article 293, Draft Constitution of India 1948

Notwithstanding anything contained in article 67 of this Constitution, the President may, if he is of opinion that the Anglo-Indian community is not adequately represented in the House of the People, nominate not more than two members of the community to the House of the People.

VERSION 2

Article 331, Constitution of India 1950

Notwithstanding anything in article 81, the President may, if he is of opinion that the Anglo-Indian community is not adequately represented in the House of the People, nominate not more than two members of that community to the House of the People.

SUMMARY

Draft Article 293 (Article 331, Constitution of India 1950) was discussed on 24 August 1949. The Draft Article gave the President the power to appoint two members from the Anglo Indian community to the Lok Sabha if the President was of the opinion that the community wasn’t adequately represented.

A Member moved an amendment to allow the President to nominate ‘an adequate number’ of any minority committee to the Lok Sabha, and not limit the nominations by number or community. Another member was worried that the amendment would set a dangerous precedent especially since there was already an Article (Article 81) that already dealt with the representation of minority communities. A third member argued that Draft Article 293 was an exception to the earlier Article and was necessary because the Anglo-Indian community was extremely small and needed to be represented in the Lok Sabha.

The amendment was rejected by the Assembly, and the Draft Article was adopted without any changes on the same day.