BPSC 69th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 110 of 144

Correct — C, Article 120 (1). The power lives in the proviso to Article 120(1), and the official text of the Constitution reads: “Notwithstanding anything in Part XVII, but subject to the provisions of article 348, business in Parliament shall be transacted in Hindi or in English: Provided that the Chairman of the Council of States or Speaker of the House of the People, or person acting as such, as the case may be, may permit any member who cannot adequately express himself in Hindi or in English to address the House in his mother-tongue.” Read closely, that single sentence settles three things the question is really testing. First, the default is narrow — the business of Parliament is transacted in Hindi or in English, and in no other language as of right. Second, the escape is a permission and not a right: the presiding officer “may permit”, and only where the member “cannot adequately express himself” in either language, so a member fluent in English cannot demand to speak in his mother tongue. Third, the power is not the Speaker's alone — the Chairman of the Council of States holds the identical power in the Rajya Sabha, as does whoever is acting as presiding officer. Clause (2) of the same Article is the sunset switch: unless Parliament by law provided otherwise, after fifteen years from the commencement of the Constitution the Article was to be read as if the words “or in English” had been deleted. Parliament did provide otherwise, through the Official Languages Act, 1963, which is why English is still spoken in both Houses. Neither of the other two Articles offered touches language at all, which also disposes of option (d).

• (a)Article 110 (1) — Article 110(1) is the definition of a Money Bill — a Bill is deemed a Money Bill only if it contains provisions dealing solely with the matters listed in sub-clauses (a) to (g), from the imposition of a tax to appropriation out of the Consolidated Fund of India. It is tempting because the Speaker does appear in Article 110, but at clause (3), where his decision on whether a Bill is a Money Bill is made final — a Speaker's power, just not this one.
• (b)Article 122 (2) — Article 122(2) reads that no officer or member of Parliament in whom powers are vested for regulating procedure or the conduct of business, or for maintaining order, “shall be subject to the jurisdiction of any court in respect of the exercise by him of those powers”. It is again a Speaker-adjacent provision — it immunises the presiding officer from judicial second-guessing — but it confers no power over language; clause (1) is the companion bar on questioning proceedings for irregularity of procedure.
• (d)Both (A) and (B) — This bundles Article 110(1) with Article 122(2), that is, the Money Bill definition with the bar on judicial inquiry into parliamentary proceedings — two provisions that between them say nothing about language. It also pointedly leaves out the one Article that is correct, so it can never be right; a candidate who hedges toward the combination option surrenders one-third of a mark for a choice that was dead on arrival.

The Constitution deals with language in two separate places, and Article 120 belongs to the less obvious of them. Part XVII (Articles 343 to 351) carries the general scheme — Article 343(1) makes Hindi in Devanagari script the official language of the Union, Article 348(1) keeps English as the language of the Supreme Court, of every High Court and of the authoritative texts of all Bills, Acts and Ordinances, and Article 350A directs States to provide instruction in the mother tongue at the primary stage. Article 120, by contrast, sits in Part V, Chapter II, among the Articles that govern the conduct of business in Parliament (Articles 79 to 122), and it opens with a non obstante clause — “Notwithstanding anything in Part XVII, but subject to the provisions of article 348” — precisely so that the language of debate inside the Houses is settled by this Article rather than by the general Part XVII scheme. Article 210 does the identical job for a State legislature.

All three Articles named in the options sit within a few pages of one another in Part V, Chapter II, so the question is really asking you to place a provision inside a short run of consecutive procedure Articles rather than to recall an isolated number. The efficient route is elimination by what you already know from the news: Article 110 is the Money Bill Article — every controversy about a Bill being certified as a Money Bill turns on 110(1) and on the Speaker's finality under 110(3); Article 122 is the Article courts cite when they decline to examine how a House conducted itself. Neither has a language limb, and once both are gone option (d), which is built only out of those two, goes with them. That leaves Article 120, whose marginal heading is literally “Language to be used in Parliament”. The single discriminating fact is that the mother-tongue permission is a proviso to Article 120(1), not a free-standing clause — which is also why the question writes the answer as “Article 120 (1)” rather than as a separate sub-clause. The commonest wrong instinct is to reach for Article 350A, because that is the other Article with “mother tongue” in it; but 350A is about school instruction for linguistic-minority children, not about addressing the House.

• Article 120(1), proviso: the Chairman of the Council of States or the Speaker of the House of the People, or the person acting as such, “may permit any member who cannot adequately express himself in Hindi or in English to address the House in his mother-tongue”.
• Article 120(2): unless Parliament by law provided otherwise, fifteen years after the commencement of the Constitution the Article was to read as if “or in English” were omitted. Parliament legislated — the Official Languages Act, 1963 — so English continues in both Houses.
• Article 110(1) defines a Money Bill by an exhaustive list of matters in sub-clauses (a) to (g); Article 110(3) makes the Speaker's decision on whether a Bill is a Money Bill final.
• Article 122(1) bars any challenge to the validity of parliamentary proceedings “on the ground of any alleged irregularity of procedure”; Article 122(2) puts the officers who regulate procedure and maintain order beyond the jurisdiction of any court for the exercise of those powers.
• Article 210(1) is the State mirror: business in a State legislature is transacted in the official language or languages of the State, or in Hindi, or in English, with the same mother-tongue proviso exercisable by the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly or the Chairman of the Legislative Council. Article 210(2)'s fifteen-year clause was stretched to twenty-five years for Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura, and later for Arunachal Pradesh, Goa and Mizoram.
• Article 350A, inserted by the Constitution (Seventh Amendment) Act, 1956, is the other “mother tongue” Article — adequate facilities for instruction in the mother tongue at the primary stage for children of linguistic minority groups. It is the classic wrong answer to a mother-tongue question about Parliament.

• Assuming the power belongs to the Speaker alone. The proviso gives the Chairman of the Council of States exactly the same power in the Rajya Sabha, and extends it to any person acting as presiding officer.
• Treating mother-tongue speech as a member's right. It is a discretionary permission, and the stated condition is that the member cannot adequately express himself in Hindi or in English.
• Answering Article 350A because it also says “mother tongue”. That Article is about primary-stage instruction for linguistic minorities, and belongs to Part XVII, not to the Articles on parliamentary procedure.
• Picking the combination option out of caution. Here “Both (A) and (B)” joins two Articles that have no language content and omits the only correct one, so it costs one-third of a mark with no upside.

BPSC's habit is the bare Article-number question — name the Article that carries a provision, with two or three neighbouring numbers as decoys and a “Both (A) and (B)” option to punish hedging. UPSC almost never asks a number for its own sake; it tests the same corner through the substance of the provision, through a statement set on the official-language scheme or the Eighth Schedule, or through a matching item pairing Articles with what they actually say. Learn Article 120 as a sentence you can quote, not as a digit.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under which Article of the Constitution may the Speaker of a State Legislative Assembly permit a member to address the House in his mother tongue?

  • (a)Article 210
  • (b)Article 208
  • (c)Article 212
  • (d)Article 348

  Answer(a) Article 210 — the proviso to Article 210(1); Article 208 deals with rules of procedure, Article 212 with courts not inquiring into legislature proceedings, and Article 348 with the language of courts and of authoritative texts.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Article 122 of the Constitution of India deals with which of the following?

  • (a)Definition of Money Bills
  • (b)Language to be used in Parliament
  • (c)Courts not to inquire into proceedings of Parliament
  • (d)Restriction on discussion in Parliament regarding the conduct of a Judge

  Answer(c) Courts not to inquire into proceedings of Parliament — Money Bills are Article 110, language in Parliament is Article 120, and the bar on discussing a Judge's conduct is Article 121.