Indian Politics Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Correct answer: Shall act in accordance with the advice of the Council of Ministers

Article 74(1) provides that there shall be a Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister at its head to aid and advise the President, who shall act in accordance with such advice. The words in italics were not in the original text. The 42nd Amendment of 1976 added them, making the advice binding and settling a question the framers had left to convention. The 44th Amendment of 1978 then added a proviso allowing the President to require the Council to reconsider its advice - but the President must act in accordance with the advice tendered after such reconsideration. So the President has a suspensive check, exercisable once, and no more. Article 74(2) adds that the question whether any advice was tendered, and what it was, shall not be inquired into by any court, which keeps the deliberations confidential. This is what makes the President a nominal executive and the Prime Minister the real one, in the parliamentary manner.

Answer: C

Parliament legislates on both the Union List and the Concurrent List.

State legislatures also legislate on the Concurrent List, but where the two conflict the central law prevails. Parliament may reach the State List only in the special circumstances set out in Articles 249 to 253.

Answer: B

Correct answer: 9 December 1946

The Constituent Assembly first met on 9 December 1946, in the Constitution Hall in New Delhi, with 207 members present. Dr Sachchidananda Sinha, the oldest member, was chosen as temporary chairman, and Dr Rajendra Prasad was elected permanent President two days later. The Muslim League boycotted the session, pressing its demand for a separate state, and members from the areas that became Pakistan withdrew after partition, which reduced the Assembly’s membership considerably. It was constituted under the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946, with members elected indirectly by the provincial assemblies. It took two years, eleven months and eighteen days to complete its work, adopting the Constitution on 26 November 1949 and bringing it into force on 26 January 1950. It went on to serve as the provisional Parliament of India until the first general election in 1951–52.

Answer: A

Six prime ministers had received the Bharat Ratna up to November 2014: Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Morarji Desai, Rajiv Gandhi and Gulzarilal Nanda.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was announced as the seventh in December 2014 and conferred it in 2015.

Answer: B

The president's oath of office is administered by the Chief Justice of India, or in that person's absence by the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court.

The president in turn administers the oath to the prime minister and the other ministers.

Answer: D

Article 1 declares India to be a Union of States.

Ambedkar explained the wording deliberately: the Union is not the result of an agreement between states, and no state has the right to secede. The federation is a union because it is indestructible.

Answer: C

Article 368 lays down the procedure for amending the Constitution.

Most amendments need a two-thirds majority of members present and voting in each House and a majority of the total membership; those affecting the federal structure also need ratification by half the state legislatures. The Kesavananda Bharati case held that the power cannot be used to destroy the basic structure.

Answer: B

Members of the Union Public Service Commission are appointed by the president, under Article 316.

At least half must be persons who have held office under the government for at least ten years. Removal requires a report of the Supreme Court, which is what secures the commission's independence.

Answer: A

The Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909 aimed at the extension of the provincial legislative councils, enlarging them and admitting more elected Indian members.

They also introduced separate electorates for Muslims, a step whose consequences reached far beyond the reform itself.

Answer: A

'Procedure established by law' means judges cannot question the fairness or validity of a law, only whether the prescribed procedure was followed.

The phrase, taken from Japanese and English practice, is narrower than the American 'due process of law'. The Supreme Court effectively read due process into it in Maneka Gandhi (1978) by requiring the procedure itself to be fair and reasonable.