BPSC 69th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 119 of 144

Correct — A, Only 1, 3 and 4. The whole item is decided by one sub-clause of the Constitution, Article 360(4), and the four statements are close paraphrases of its three limbs — with one of them deliberately inverted. Read the text itself. Article 360(4) opens “Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution” and then provides that “(a) any such direction may include—(i) a provision requiring the reduction of salaries and allowances of all or any class of persons serving in connection with the affairs of a State; (ii) a provision requiring all Money Bills or other Bills to which the provisions of article 207 apply to be reserved for the consideration of the President after they are passed by the Legislature of the State; (b) it shall be competent for the President during the period any Proclamation issued under this article is in operation to issue directions for the reduction of salaries and allowances of all or any class of persons serving in connection with the affairs of the Union including the Judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts.” Map the statements onto that text and the answer falls out. Statement 1 is sub-clause (4)(a)(i) almost word for word — the direction to a State may require the reduction of salaries and allowances of persons serving in connection with the affairs of that State. Statement 3 is sub-clause (4)(b), and it carries the phrase that examiners love: the President's power to cut Union salaries extends “including the Judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts”. That inclusion is remarkable, because the proviso to Article 125(2) otherwise forbids varying a Supreme Court judge's privileges, allowances or pension “to his disadvantage after his appointment” (Article 221(2) says the same for High Court judges). Article 360(4) overrides that protection, which is exactly why it begins with a non obstante clause. Statement 4 is sub-clause (4)(a)(ii), again nearly verbatim, down to the words “after they are passed by the Legislature of the State”. Statement 2 is the trap, and it is not a subtle one once you see it: it asserts the precise opposite of statement 4. Statements 2 and 4 cannot both be true, so any option containing both is dead on arrival — that alone destroys (d) All of the above without knowing a single article. What survives is a choice between the reading in which reservation is required (statement 4, so options containing 4) and the reading in which it is not (statement 2). Article 360(4)(a)(ii) settles it in favour of reservation, so 2 falls and 1, 3 and 4 stand, which is option (a). One precision point worth holding, because BPSC has printed a looser phrase than the Constitution does. The Constitution does not say “financial bills” in Article 360(4)(a)(ii); it says “all Money Bills or other Bills to which the provisions of article 207 apply”. Article 207 governs State Bills making provision for the matters in sub-clauses (a) to (f) of Article 199(1) — taxes, borrowing, custody of the Consolidated Fund of the State, appropriation, charged expenditure and State revenue. So the class of Bills caught by a financial emergency is defined by reference to Article 207, and “financial bills” in the stem is a shorthand for exactly that class. The substance of statement 4 is right; only the label is loose. Note also what statement 1 does not say. Article 360(3) is the enabling clause: while a Proclamation is in operation the executive authority of the Union extends to directing any State “to observe such canons of financial propriety as may be specified in the directions”, plus such other directions as the President deems necessary. Clause (4)(a) then tells you what those directions may include. So a salary cut in a State comes as a direction to the State under (3) and (4)(a); a salary cut for Union employees and judges is a direct presidential power under (4)(b). The answer to this paper's question is ours, derived independently by two models that could not see each other's work and that agreed at high confidence, because the constitutional text leaves no room for a second reading.

• (b)Only 2 — This picks the one statement that the Constitution contradicts outright, and rejects the three it states almost verbatim. Article 360(4)(a)(ii) requires all Money Bills and other Bills attracting Article 207 to be reserved for the President's consideration after passage by the State Legislature; statement 2 says such reservation is not required. A candidate reaches (b) by half-remembering the ordinary rule — in normal times a State Bill goes to the Governor under Article 200, who may reserve it for the President but is not obliged to for money Bills — and forgetting that a financial emergency converts that discretion into a mandatory reservation of every such Bill.
• (c)Only 1 and 2 — Statement 1 is genuinely right, which makes this option feel half-safe, but it pairs it with the inverted statement 2 and drops statement 3. Dropping 3 is the substantive error: many candidates assume the salary-protection proviso in Article 125(2) and Article 221(2) shields the judiciary from any pay cut, when Article 360(4)(b) expressly names “the Judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts” among those whose salaries and allowances the President may reduce. If you accept statement 1, you have accepted that clause (4)(a) applies — and clause (4)(a)(ii), the source of statement 4, sits in the same sub-clause.
• (d)All of the above — This is eliminable on pure logic before any article is recalled. Statement 2 says Money Bills passed by a State Legislature need not be reserved for the President; statement 4 says they must be reserved after passage. They are exact negations of one another, so no set that contains both can be correct. Option (d) is the classic 'all of the above' bait on a four-statement item that has been built with a contradictory pair inside it, and spotting the contradiction is faster than recalling Article 360(4).

India's Constitution provides three emergencies in Part XVIII (Articles 352 to 360): a National Emergency on grounds of war, external aggression or armed rebellion (Article 352), President's Rule on the failure of constitutional machinery in a State (Article 356), and a Financial Emergency (Article 360). Article 360(1) lets the President proclaim a financial emergency if satisfied “that a situation has arisen whereby the financial stability or credit of India or of any part of the territory thereof is threatened”. Its operative effect is centralising rather than suspensive: it does not touch Fundamental Rights and does not dissolve any legislature, but it hands the Union executive a power of financial direction over the States (clause 3), a power to order salary reductions both in the States and at the Centre, and a power to intercept every State money Bill by requiring it to be reserved for the President (clause 4). Approval is quick and light: clause (2) as substituted by the 44th Amendment requires the Proclamation to be laid before each House and to lapse in two months unless approved by resolutions of both Houses. No Proclamation under Article 360 has ever been issued in India — the article has been discussed in crises, including the balance-of-payments crisis of 1991, but never invoked.

The fastest route to the answer is structural, not encyclopaedic: read the four statements against each other before you read them against the Constitution. Statements 2 and 4 are a matched pair of opposites on the same subject — reservation of State money Bills for the President — so exactly one of them is true and option (d) is impossible. That single observation removes one option for free and tells you the item is really testing one fact: does a financial emergency make reservation mandatory or optional? It makes it mandatory, so 4 is in and 2 is out, and the only surviving option that contains 4 is (a). The discriminating fact, if you want to confirm rather than infer, is the judges clause. Article 360(4)(b) is the only place in the Constitution where a sitting Supreme Court or High Court judge's salary and allowances can be reduced, and it names them expressly, overriding the proviso to Article 125(2) and Article 221(2). A candidate who remembers that one phrase confirms statement 3 and confirms that the answer must be a set containing 1, 3 and 4. The trap works in the other direction too: judicial independence is drilled so hard that many candidates reject statement 3 on principle, which pushes them towards (c). Note also the asymmetry worth carrying into the exam hall — over States the Union acts by 'direction' under clauses (3) and (4)(a), while over Union employees and judges the President acts directly under clause (4)(b).

• Article 360(1): the President may proclaim a financial emergency on satisfaction that “the financial stability or credit of India or of any part of the territory thereof is threatened”.
• Article 360(2)(c), as substituted by the 44th Amendment Act, 1978 (w.e.f. 20 June 1979): the Proclamation ceases to operate after two months unless approved by resolutions of both Houses of Parliament — and unlike Article 352(6), no special majority is prescribed.
• Article 360(3): while it is in operation the Union's executive authority extends to directing any State to observe “such canons of financial propriety as may be specified in the directions”.
• Article 360(4)(a)(ii) requires “all Money Bills or other Bills to which the provisions of article 207 apply” to be reserved for the President's consideration after passage by the State Legislature; Article 207 covers State Bills on the matters in Article 199(1)(a) to (f).
• Article 360(4)(b) permits reduction of salaries and allowances of Union employees “including the Judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts”, overriding the proviso to Articles 125(2) and 221(2).
• Clause (5), inserted by the 38th Amendment Act, 1975 to make the President's satisfaction final and conclusive and non-justiciable, was omitted by the 44th Amendment Act, 1978 — so the proclamation is not immune from judicial review today.
• Article 360 has never been invoked since the Constitution came into force in 1950, in contrast to Article 352 (three times: 1962, 1971, 1975) and Article 356 (used well over a hundred times).

• Rejecting the judges statement because judicial independence is assumed to be absolute — Article 360(4)(b) names Supreme Court and High Court Judges expressly and overrides Articles 125(2) and 221(2)
• Missing that two statements in the list are exact negations of each other, which alone rules out 'All of the above'
• Carrying over the normal-times rule under Article 200, where reserving a State Bill for the President is the Governor's discretion, into a financial emergency, where reservation of every Article 207 Bill is mandatory

BPSC prefers the consequence list — 'which of the following is/are the consequence(s) of invoking Article 360' — with one statement quietly inverted so the set can be cracked by spotting the contradiction, and it expects you to know the sub-clauses of a single article rather than compare articles. UPSC asks the same material as a two-statement precision test (2007 Prelims put the two-month approval rule against a deliberately wrong 'but excluding the judges' clause) or shifts to Article 356 and asks which consequences follow 'necessarily'. Both reward the exact words of the text over a summary of it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under Article 360 of the Constitution of India, a Proclamation of Financial Emergency ceases to operate at the expiration of which period unless approved by resolutions of both Houses of Parliament?

  • (a)One month
  • (b)Two months
  • (c)Six months
  • (d)One year

  Answer(b) Two months — Article 360(2)(c), as substituted by the 44th Amendment Act, 1978, and unlike Article 352 no special majority is prescribed for the approving resolutions.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following clauses of the Constitution of India expressly permits the reduction of the salaries and allowances of the Judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts?

  • (a)Article 125(2), proviso
  • (b)Article 221(2), proviso
  • (c)Article 360(4)(b)
  • (d)Article 356(1)(b)

  Answer(c) Article 360(4)(b) — during a financial emergency the President may direct reduction of salaries and allowances of Union employees 'including the Judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts'; the provisos to Articles 125(2) and 221(2) do the opposite, barring variation to a judge's disadvantage.