Constituent Assembly Background

   The members of the Constituent Assembly envisaged the judiciary as the bastion of rights and justice. They wanted to insulate the courts from attempted coercion from forces within and outside the government. Sapru Committee Report on judiciary and the Constituent Assembly’s ad hoc committee on the Supreme Court report formed the bulk of the guidelines for judiciary. A.K.Ayyar, K.Santhanam, M.A.Ayyangar, Tej Bahadur Sapru, B.N.Rau, K.M. Munshi, Saadulla and B.R.Ambedkar played important roles in shaping the judicial system of India. The unitary judicial system seems to have been accepted with the least questioning. The Supreme Court was to have a special, countrywide responsibility for the protection of individual rights. Ambedkar was perhaps the greatest apostle in the Assembly of what he described as ‘one single integrated judiciary having jurisdiction and providing remedies in all cases arising under the Constitutional law, the Civil, or the criminal law, essential to maintain the unity of the country.