basic principle committee_interim_report_1950

Basic Principle Committee Interim Report (1950)

The Basic Principles Committee was formed on 12th March 1949 by the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. The Basic Principles Committee comprised of 24 members. These individuals were not required to be the members of the first Constituent Assembly. It was headed by Maulvi Tameezuddin Khan and Liaquat Ali Khan was its Vice President. The task assigned to the Basic Principles Committee was to determine the basic principles for framing the future constitution of Pakistan.


Molvi, Tzeem udin Khan (1889 - 19 August 1963), was the President

(speaker) of Pakistan's first Constituent Assembly

Tamizuddin created history when the Constituent Assembly was dismissed by Governor General Ghulam Mohammad in 1954. Tamizuddin challenged the dismissal in the court and the case was filed in the morning of 7 November 1954, by Advocate Manzar-e-Alam. Although the High Court agreed and overturned it, the Federal Court under Justice Muhammad Munir upheld the dismissal. He had been president of the Basic Principles Committee set up in 1949.

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There were three sub committees set-up under the Basic Principles Committee:

1. Sub-committee on federal and provincial constitution and distribution of powers

2. Sub-committee on franchise3. Sub-committee for judiciary

Basic Principle Committee Interim Report (1950

• The task of these committees was to make recommendation regarding the area of their expertise.

• On 28th September 1950 the BPC presented its interim report to the Constituent Assembly. The salient features of this report were as following:


1. Objectives Resolution should be made part of the constitution and should serve as the directive principle of state policy.

2. The state of Pakistan was to be a federation.3. The Central Legislature was to be bicameral.

It would consist of a House of Unit (Upper House) with 100 members and a House of People (Lower House) with 400 members.


4. The Upper House was to be the representative institution of the provinces, elected by provincial legislature. While the Lower House was to be elected by the people on the basis of adult franchise.

5. The tenure of both the Houses was to be five years and both were to enjoy equal power.


6. The decisions regarding budget or monetary bills were to be decided in joint sessions of the two houses.

7. The Head of state was to be elected by a joint session of the two houses for a term of five years and would work on the advice of the Prime Minister.


8. Federal legislature had the authority to remove the head of state.

9. Each province was to have its own legislature; elected on the basis of adult franchise for a term of five years.

10. Head of the provincial legislature was to be elected by the head of state for a term of five years and he was to work on the advice of Chief Minister.


11. Legislative power was to be divided in three lists: a) The Federal list comprising of 67 subjects on which

the central legislature would legislate.b) The Provincial list comprising of 35 items, the

provincial legislature would legislate on these subjects. And

c) The Concurrent list of 37 items on which both the central and provincial legislatures had the authority to legislate. The residuary powers were vested in the center.


12. In case of a dispute, the Supreme Court had the authority to interpret the constitution.

13. The procedure to amend the constitution was very rigid; it required a majority approval from the central and provincial legislatures.

14. Head of the state was given added powers like the authority to abrogate the constitution and issue ordinances.


15. Urdu was to be the state language.16. The Supreme Court was the head of judiciary. It

would consist of the Chief Justice and 2 to 6 judges. And High Courts for each province were to be established.

17. A Board of Ulama would be appointed by the head of state and provincial governors to examine the process of law making and to ensure that laws were in accordance with the Quran and Sunnah.

Basic Principle Committee Interim Report (1950

REACTION: 1. The reaction to this report proved counterproductive

and was not conducive to success.2. As a consequence popularity of the First Constituent

Assembly was badly maligned. Resultantly Liaquat Ali Khan was forced to postpone his considerations on account of severe criticism on the part of East Pakistan. This delay led to many complications in the progress of the First Constituent Assembly.


3. The crux of criticism was related to underrepresentation in the central legislature and the proposal for a strong center with vast powers on financial matters. East Pakistan was given equal number of seats in Upper House, the same as West Pakistan. Thus it reduces the principle of majority and turned East Pakistan into a minority. Moreover, the interim report was preposterous for the East Pakistan since it Urdu as national language and Bengali was nowhere in the constitutional arena.


CONSEQUENCES OF REACTION:1. As a result of this reaction, Liaquat Ali Khan

postponed the consideration of report and invited new suggestions.

2. In order to include public opinion he called forth general comments and suggestions by public on the report.


3. For this a committee was setup in the headed by Sardar Abdur Rab Nishter, who presented a report in the Constituent assembly on July 1952.

Resultantly, the struggle for making a constitution caused serious apprehension in the mind of East Pakistan. They felt that the Bengali interests were not safe in such a state of affairs.

Report of the Basic Principle Committee (1952)

The Basic Principles Committee was established on 12th March 1949 by Khawaja Nazimuddin on the instruction of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan. This committee had 24 members and was headed by Khawaja Nazimuddin and Liaquat Khan was its vice president. This committee presented its first report on 1950 but was severely criticized, particularly in East Pakistan so it referred back to the Constituent Assembly.


Sub committees were also appointed for public suggestions and these sub committees made their reports and presented them to the Basic Principles Committee which then presented the final and complete report to the Constituent Assembly in 1952. The report was revised before an agreement could be reached in the Constituent Assembly.


The prominent features of the report were:o Objective resolution was adopted as a preamble to the

proposed constitution and its principles were to guide the state. Another important clause was that which laid down procedure to prevent any legislation to be made against the Quran and Sunnah.

o Head of the State should be a Muslim and elected by the both Houses of federal legislature for a term of 5 year.

o Seats were also allocated for communities in the House of People

o Word unit was specified for all provinces, capital and federations. The head of these units were to be selected for a term of 5 years.


o The formula gave weightage to the smaller units of West Pakistan. Federal legislature comprised of two Houses, House of Units consisted of 120 members.

o The East Bengal legislature was to elect 60 members according to principle of proportional representation and the rest of the members were to be elected from west by the same rule.

o The House of People had real authority and comprised of 400 members, 200 from West and 200 from East Pakistan.

o Chief Minister of each unit and minister were appointed by the Head of that unit and ministers for each unit would be chosen by the Chief Minister


o When the federal legislature was not in session, Head of the State could promulgate ordinances. The Head of the State could dissolve the House of People on the advice or counsel of minister.

o Chief justice of the Supreme Court would be appointed by the Head of the State and other 6 judges would also be appointed by the Head of the State by the recommendations of Chief Justice.

o Guarantees were also given to the civil servants of the federation and units against the dismissal, and to reduction in the rank without opportunity to showcases


o But the second and final report of the Basic Principles Committee was not received too well. The report was criticized because of these defects:

The draft ignored the fact that East Bengal contained majority of the population of the country and West Pakistan had the major part of the country’s territory.

The draft made the lower house a weak replica of the House of People and reduced its utility. It also made no provision if both houses were unable to resolve the conflict in joint session.

o Like the first report this was also criticized but this time criticism arose from Punjab which considered the federal formula to be defective.

o They demanded equal representation for various units in lower house and equal power for both Houses.


o The Punjab members in the Basic Principles Committee and the Federal Cabinet disliked the formula because they felt East Pakistan would easily dominate West Pakistan which had been divided into nine units.

o Religious leaders were also not satisfied with the Islamic character of the recommended constitution especially with regards to their demand for declaration of Ahmadis as non-Muslims.

Dissolution of the 1st Constituent Assembly

o Pro-US Governor General, Ghulam Muhammad, and Prime Minister, Muhammad Ali Bogra, were moving well and in a cooperative way.

o Both had a mission to bring Pakistan in the Western camp.

o However, they were afraid of the ever increasing popularity of the anti-US and anti-establishment forces in the country, especially in East Bengal.

o Victory of United Front in the 1954 provincial assembly elections appeared as a threat to their intentions.


o The members of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan had openly started criticizing the attempts to bring Pakistan closer to the United States.

o In a statement issued on September 22, Fazlur Rahman, the formal federal minister, alleged that the proposed Pak-US cooperation would ‘seriously jeopardize the political and economic interests of Pakistan

o it would ultimately result in the colonization of the country by America.

o On his initiative the assembly decided to send a trade delegation to Soviet Union with an idea to bring the two countries closer.

o Furthermore, the Constituent Assembly was not happy with the ever increasing role of the Governor-General and day to day affairs of the government.


o They also disliked the power of the Governor-General to dissolve the government.

o When Ghulam Muhammad was on an official tour of NWFP, the CAP amended the constitution and snatched away his discretionary power under which he had dismissed Nazimuddin’s government.

o Ghulam Muhammad cut short his tour and immediately retuned back to Karachi.

o On his return he first of all tried to win over important politicians including Ayub Khuhro, Mumtaz Daultana, Fazlul Haq and Dr. Khan Sahib etc. and then took Ayub Khan into confidence.

o Once he was sure that he had the backing of the people who matter on October 24 he dissolved the CAP on the ground that it had lost the confidence of the people of Pakistan.


o He imposed press censorship and promised fresh elections. Bogra, the Prime Minister of the dissolved assembly endorsed the move and declared CAP was responsible for imperiling national unity by provoking personal, sectional and provincial rivalries and suspicion. He was made the Prime Minister of the Cabinet which used back door to gain power.

Maulvi Tamizuddin CaseMaulvi Tamizuddin Khan, the president of the dissolved CAP did not submit to the idea and along

with other members tried to hold the already scheduled session of the assembly on October 28. When they were not allowed to enter the assembly hall, on November 7 he filled a writ in the Sindh Chief Court against the action of the Governor-General. On February 9, 1955, a full bench of the Sindh Chief Court gave verdict in favour of Maulvi Tamizuddin and ordered that the Governor-General had no power to dissolve the CAP. After the ruling, Maulvi Tamizuddin called the meeting of the CAP on March 7. Bogra, after consulting Ghulam Muhammad, who was in Paris at that time for his medical treatment, decided to challenge the decision in the Federal Court. Chief Justice of the Federal Court, Justice Muhammad Munir, assured the government that the judgment of the Sindh Court would be reverted. The Federal Court, working according to doctrine of necessity, did not go into the question, whether the CAP was legally dissolved or not. Rather, they rejected the writ on technical ground that Section 233A under which the writ had been issued in favour of Maulvi Tamizuddin was not yet law since it had not received the assent of the Governor-General. One member of the five member bench, Justice A.R. Cornelius held that the assent of the Governor General was not required for constitutional Act and believed that they decision of the Sindh Chief Court should be upheld. The history of Pakistan would have been different, had the voice of Justice Cornelius be heard by the other four judges of the bench.

basic principle committee_interim_report_1950

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