Question

Describe the unitary and federal principles of Indian government as discussed in the CA debates?

Answer 1

The unitary and federal principles of Indian government as discussed in the CA debates were as follows:
i) The Indian Constitution is a federal Constitution in which there is a strong central government, and subsidiary polities exist side by side, whereby each is sovereign in the field assigned to it.
ii) It is unitary in the sense that the central polity enjoys the supremacy. This means that the Constitution establishes Dual Polity wherein the powers are divided between the state and the centre. The state makes laws on the state list, the centre on union list and both can make laws on the concurrent list.
iii) Each state has its own separate legislative, executive and judiciary powers. In order to avoid chaos in federal states, the draft Constitution sought to maintain the unity of the county by adopting a single judiciary, uniformity in fundamental laws and common all India civil service. This idea of dual polity was borrowed from the American Constitution.