On 6th December 1948, Shri Alladi Krishnaswamy Iyer [Madras General] at the Constituent Assembly spoke as follows;
“The expression due process itself as interpreted by the English Judges connoted merely the due course of legal proceedings according to the rules and forms established for the protection of right, and a fair trial in a court of Justice according to the modes of proceedings applicable to the case. Possibly if the expression has been understood according to its original content and according to interpretation of English Judges, there might be no difficulty at all. The expression however as developed in the United States Supreme Court has acquired a different meaning and import the long course of American judicial decision. Today, according to Professor Will, is expression mean, what the Supreme Court says, what it mean in a particular case. It is just possible, from ardent democrat may have greatest faith in the Judiciary then in the conscious will expressed through the enactment of a popular legislature. Three gentlemen or five gentlemen sitting at the Court of Law and stating what exactly is due process according to them in a particular case, after listening to, to long discourses and argument of briefed Counsel on the other side, may appeal to certain democrat more than express wishes of the legislature for the act or the action of an Executive a responsible to the Legislature. In the Development Doctrine of due process, the United States Supreme Court has not adopted a consistent view at all and the decisions are conflicting. One decision very often reverse another decision. I would challenge any member of the Bar with a deep knowledge of the cases in the United States Supreme Court to say, there is anything like uniformity regard to interpretation of due process. One has to only take the index in the law reports annotated edition for 15 years and compared the decisions of 1 year with the decisions of another year and he will come to conclusion that it has no definite import. It all depended upon the particular Judges that presided on the occasion. Justice Holmes took a view favourable to social control. There are other Judges of Tory complexion who took a strong in favour of individual liberty and private property. There is no sort of uniformity at all in the decisions of the United States Supreme Court.
Some of my Honourable Friends have spoken as it merely applied the cases of detention and imprisonment. The Minimum Wage Law are a Restraint on Employment have in some cases been regarded as an invasion of personal liberty and freedom by the United States Supreme Court in earlier decisions. The theory be that it is an essential part of personal liberty that every person in the World be she a woman, be he a child over 14 years of age or he be a labourer has a right to enter any contract he or she liked and it is not the province of other people to interfere with that liberty on that ground the earlier decisions of the Supreme Court it has been held Minim Wages Laws are invalid as invading personal liberty. In recent times, I quite realise after a New Deal the swing of the Pendulum has been other way. Even there, there has not been any consistency or any uniformity. I hope that is this amendment is carried, in the interpretation of this Clause, our Supreme Court will not follow American Precedents especially in the earlier stages but it will mold the interpretation to suit the condition of India and the progress wellbeing of the Country.”
Comment: Judgments are delivered following the spirit of the phrase due process of law after standing it has been replaced by the Clause procedure established by Law, a notion incorporated by the Drafting Committee contrary to the mandate of the Advisory Committee which recommended the inclusion of due process of law.