Statement I: The first meeting of the Constituent Assembly was held on 9th December, 1946 in New Delhi.

Statement II: Jawaharlal Nehru was not invited to the Constituent Assembly.

Which of the following options is correct?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — C, Statement I is true but Statement II is false. Statement I is a plain date fact: the Constituent Assembly of India met for the first time on 9 December 1946, at 11 a.m., in the Constitution Hall (today the Central Hall) of the Council House in New Delhi, with Dr. Sachchidananda Sinha — the Assembly's oldest member — in the chair as temporary President. Statement II is simply wrong: Jawaharlal Nehru was an elected member of that very Assembly, he was present in the December 1946 sittings, and four days later, on 13 December 1946, he himself moved the Objective Resolution that became the seed of the Preamble. He also chaired the Union Powers Committee and the Union Constitution Committee. The body that stayed away from the first sitting was the Muslim League, which boycotted the Assembly — not Nehru.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Statement I is indeed true, but Statement II cannot be — Nehru was a member of the Constituent Assembly and moved its most famous early motion, the Objective Resolution, on 13 December 1946. Marking both true means accepting that the Congress's tallest leader was excluded from the body that framed the Constitution.  (b) Statement I is true. The date and venue are among the most-tested facts in Indian polity: 9 December 1946, Constitution Hall, New Delhi — the sitting at which Dr. Sachchidananda Sinha presided as temporary chairman.  (d) This exactly reverses the truth values. It rejects a verified date (9 December 1946) and accepts a fabricated claim (Nehru's exclusion) — the classic 'mirror-image' distractor in Statement I / Statement II questions.

Concept: The Constituent Assembly was constituted under the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946. Its members were not directly elected by the people — provincial legislative assemblies elected them by proportional representation with a single transferable vote, and the princely states sent nominees. The Assembly first met on 9 December 1946, with Dr. Sachchidananda Sinha as temporary President; on 11 December 1946 it elected Dr. Rajendra Prasad as its permanent President. The Muslim League boycotted this first sitting, pressing its demand for a separate constituent assembly for Pakistan.

State PCS 2025 Q71 — Indian Polity PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q71 — Indian Polity PYQ with Answer