Indian Politics Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Correct answer: 2019

Article 370 was effectively abrogated in August 2019. A Presidential Order superseded the earlier order of 1954 and applied the whole Constitution of India to Jammu and Kashmir, and a statutory resolution of Parliament declared the article inoperative. The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act passed at the same time reorganised the state into two union territories: Jammu and Kashmir, with a legislature, and Ladakh, without one. It was the first time a state had been converted into union territories. Article 370 had been a temporary provision under which the state had its own constitution and flag, and Parliament’s power over it was limited to defence, external affairs and communications unless the state concurred. Article 35A, which flowed from it and defined permanent residents and their special rights, fell with it. The Supreme Court upheld the abrogation in December 2023, holding that Article 370 was a temporary provision, while directing that statehood be restored.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Parliament

The power to amend rests with Parliament under Article 368, which sets out the procedure. A bill may be introduced in either House and must be passed by each by a majority of its total membership and by two thirds of the members present and voting. There is no provision for a joint sitting. For certain provisions that affect the federal structure - the election of the President, the extent of executive power, the distribution of legislative powers, representation of states in Parliament, and Article 368 itself - ratification by the legislatures of at least half the states is also required. Some provisions can be altered by ordinary law and are not amendments at all: the creation of new states, changes to citizenship, and the abolition or creation of a state Legislative Council. The limit on the power is judicial. Since Kesavananda Bharati in 1973 the Supreme Court has held that Parliament cannot alter the basic structure of the Constitution, however large its majority.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Part II

Citizenship is covered by Part II, Articles 5 to 11. These articles determine who was a citizen at the commencement of the Constitution on 26 January 1950 - by domicile, by migration from or to Pakistan, or by descent for persons of Indian origin residing abroad. Article 11 then empowers Parliament to regulate the whole subject by law, which it did through the Citizenship Act of 1955. The Act provides five modes of acquiring citizenship: by birth, descent, registration, naturalisation and incorporation of territory; and three of losing it: renunciation, termination and deprivation. Two features are worth remembering. India has single citizenship, with no separate citizenship of a state, borrowed from Britain rather than the United States. And India does not permit dual nationality - acquiring another citizenship terminates Indian citizenship automatically, and the Overseas Citizen of India card is a residency and travel status, not citizenship. Part I deals with the Union and its territory, Part III with Fundamental Rights and Part IV with the Directive Principles.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Parliament, on a resolution passed by the state Legislative Assembly

Under Article 169 the process has two stages. The state Legislative Assembly must first pass a resolution by a majority of its total membership and by two thirds of those present and voting; Parliament may then create or abolish the Council by ordinary law. Two points follow. The initiative rests with the state, so Parliament cannot impose or remove a Council on its own; but the state cannot complete the act either, so the resolution alone changes nothing. And because such a law is expressly excluded from Article 368, it is not treated as a constitutional amendment and needs only a simple majority in Parliament. Only a handful of states have bicameral legislatures - among them Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh - and several have created and abolished Councils over the years. The Council is a weak second chamber: it can delay an ordinary bill only briefly and has almost no power over money bills.

Answer: D

Articles 245 and 246 govern the distribution of legislative powers.

Article 245 defines the territorial extent - Parliament for the whole of India, a state legislature for its own territory - and Article 246 divides the subjects between the Union, State and Concurrent Lists of the Seventh Schedule.

Answer: A

Correct answer: 2013

The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act was passed in December 2013 and received assent in January 2014, though the first Lokpal was not appointed until 2019. It provides for a Lokpal at the Union level and requires states to establish Lokayuktas. The Lokpal has a chairperson and up to eight members, half of them judicial, and may inquire into allegations of corruption against public servants including the Prime Minister - with exceptions for matters of international relations, security, public order, atomic energy and space. The legislation followed a long campaign, most visibly the movement led by Anna Hazare in 2011, though bills had been introduced repeatedly since 1968 without becoming law. The idea comes from the Scandinavian institution of the Ombudsman, and was recommended for India by the first Administrative Reforms Commission in 1966. Several states had created Lokayuktas long before the central Act, Maharashtra being the first in 1971. The Right to Information Act, a related transparency measure, dates from 2005.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Article 360

Article 360 allows the President to proclaim a financial emergency if satisfied that the financial stability or credit of India, or of any part of it, is threatened. Its consequences are severe. The Union may direct any state on financial propriety; the President may order the salaries of state officials, and of judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts, to be reduced; and all state money bills must be reserved for the President’s consideration. The proclamation must be approved by both Houses within two months, after which it continues indefinitely until revoked - there is no periodic renewal, unlike a national emergency. It has never been proclaimed, not even during the balance of payments crisis of 1991. The three kinds of emergency are worth keeping distinct: Article 352 for national emergency, Article 356 for the failure of state machinery, and Article 360 for financial emergency. Article 365 is related but different - it allows the President to hold that a state has failed to comply with a Union direction, which can itself trigger Article 356.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Article 266

Article 266 establishes the Consolidated Fund of India, into which all revenues received by the Government of India, all loans raised, and all money received in repayment of loans are credited. No money can be withdrawn from it except by appropriation made by law, which is what gives Parliament its control over public expenditure. Certain expenditure is charged on the Fund - the salaries of the President, the Speaker, judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts, and the CAG, along with debt charges - and may be discussed but not voted, which protects those offices from parliamentary pressure. Two other funds sit alongside it. The Contingency Fund under Article 267 is held at the disposal of the President to meet unforeseen expenditure, recouped afterwards by parliamentary authorisation. The Public Account under Article 266(2) holds money the government receives as a banker - provident funds, small savings - and needs no appropriation for withdrawal. Article 112 requires the Annual Financial Statement and Article 280 provides for the Finance Commission.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Articles 20 and 21

Articles 20 and 21 cannot be suspended under Article 359 even during a national emergency. Article 20 protects against conviction under retrospective criminal law, double jeopardy and compelled self-incrimination; Article 21 guarantees life and personal liberty. The protection was inserted by the 44th Amendment in 1978, in direct response to the Emergency of 1975–77. During that period the Supreme Court had held in ADM Jabalpur v. Shivkant Shukla that when Article 21 was suspended a detainee had no remedy at all, even against unlawful killing - a decision now regarded as the Court’s lowest point, and expressly overruled in the Puttaswamy privacy judgment of 2017. For other rights, the President may under Article 359 suspend the right to move any court for their enforcement. Separately, Article 358 suspends the six freedoms of Article 19 automatically - but only where the emergency is declared on the ground of war or external aggression, not armed rebellion, another safeguard added in 1978.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Parliament, by law

Article 124 fixes the original strength of the Supreme Court at the Chief Justice and seven other judges, but expressly allows Parliament by law to prescribe a larger number. It has done so repeatedly as the Court’s workload grew - to 11 in 1956, 14 in 1960, 18 in 1978, 26 in 1986, 31 in 2009, and 34 in 2019 including the Chief Justice. The distinction the question tests is between fixing the strength of the Court, which is legislative, and appointing individual judges, which is executive: appointments are made by the President on the collegium’s recommendation. The same pattern appears elsewhere in the Constitution: Parliament fixes the size of the Lok Sabha and can alter the strength of the Election Commission, while appointments remain with the executive. High Court judge strength, by contrast, is fixed by the President rather than by Parliament.