Examine the salient features of the Indian Independence Act (1947) relating to the transfer of power. What specific provisions did this Act make for the lapse of paramountcy? (2002)
The Indian Independence Act, 1947, which received royal assent on 18 July 1947, gave statutory form to Lord Mountbatten‘s 3 June Plan. It ended British sovereignty over British India by a transfer of power rather than a revolution, while for princely India it chose not to transfer but to terminate British authority.
Part I: Features relating to the transfer of power
- Two dominions (s. 1): from 15 August 1947 “two independent Dominions” — India and Pakistan — were created.
- Territorial partition (ss. 2–4): Pakistan’s territory was defined; Bengal and Punjab were divided, with boundary commissions under Cyril Radcliffe fixing the lines.
- End of British responsibility (s. 7(1)(a)): the UK government ceased to have any responsibility for governing the territories of British India.
- Full legislative sovereignty (s. 6): no dominion law could be void for repugnancy to English law; no UK Act would extend to a dominion unless adopted by it; the Crown’s power of disallowance and reservation ended.
- Constituent Assemblies (s. 8): each Assembly received the dominion’s legislative powers, while the Government of India Act, 1935, adapted and stripped of the Governor-General’s discretionary powers, served as the interim constitution.
- Governors-General (s. 5): a constitutional head for each dominion, acting on ministerial advice; one person could serve both.
- Transitional machinery: the Secretary of State’s office over India lapsed; civil servants’ conditions were protected (s. 10); armed forces were divided (ss. 11–13).
The dominion form was a bridge, not a limit: India’s Constituent Assembly could, and did, frame a republican constitution.
Part II: Provisions on the lapse of paramountcy
Paramountcy was the Crown’s suzerainty over roughly 565 princely states. The Cabinet Mission’s memorandum of 12 May 1946 had already declared that it would neither be retained by Britain nor handed to a successor. The Act gave this effect:
- Section 7(1)(b): the suzerainty of His Majesty over the Indian States lapses, and with it all treaties, agreements, obligations and powers exercisable by the Crown towards the states or their rulers.
- Section 7(1)(c): the same lapse applied to agreements with the tribal areas.
- Proviso to s. 7(1): arrangements on customs, transit, communications, posts and telegraphs continued until denounced by either side or superseded — the legal basis of the Standstill Agreements.
- Section 2(4): nothing prevented accession of states to either dominion.
Legally the princes became free to accede or stay out. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel‘s new States Department, with V. P. Menon as secretary, answered with the Instrument of Accession — ceding only defence, external affairs and communications. Nearly all states acceded by 15 August; Junagadh, Hyderabad and Jammu and Kashmir became crises, resolved by plebiscite (1948), police action (1948) and accession amid tribal invasion (October 1947). The Supreme Court’s Article 370 judgment (December 2023), upholding the 2019 abrogation, held that Jammu and Kashmir retained no internal sovereignty after accession — the final legal closure of the paramountcy question.
Conclusion
The Act transferred power cleanly in British India but deliberately created a legal vacuum in princely India. That vacuum was filled not by the statute but by Indian statecraft — accession, integration and finally the Constitution — which is why integration counts among the new state’s founding achievements.