BPSC 69th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 57 of 144

Correct — C, Ireland. Part IV of the Constitution of India, Articles 36 to 51, was modelled on Article 45 of the Constitution of Ireland (Bunreacht na hEireann) of 1937, which is headed 'Directive Principles of Social Policy'. This is not a claim about vague influence; the debt is visible in the wording, and both texts can be read side by side. The Irish article opens: 'The principles of social policy set forth in this Article are intended for the general guidance of the Oireachtas. The application of those principles in the making of laws shall be the care of the Oireachtas exclusively, and shall not be cognisable by any Court under any of the provisions of this Constitution.' India's Article 37 performs exactly the same manoeuvre: 'The provisions contained in this Part shall not be enforceable by any court, but the principles therein laid down are nevertheless fundamental in the governance of the country and it shall be the duty of the State to apply these principles in making laws.' A written list of social and economic goals that binds the legislature but is closed to the courts — that is the Irish device, and India took it whole. The individual clauses then track almost phrase for phrase. Irish Article 45.1 reads 'The State shall strive to promote the welfare of the whole people by securing and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice and charity shall inform all the institutions of the national life'; Indian Article 38(1) reads 'The State shall strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, shall inform all the institutions of the national life.' Irish Article 45.2.ii wants 'the ownership and control of the material resources of the community' to be 'so distributed... as best to subserve the common good'; Indian Article 39(b) uses that phrase verbatim. Ireland had in turn drawn on the Spanish Republican Constitution of 1931 and on Catholic social teaching, so India sits third in a line of descent rather than at its head.

• (a)England — Britain is the single largest source of borrowed features — parliamentary government, the cabinet system, the office of Speaker, single citizenship, legislative procedure, the writs, parliamentary privileges, the rule of law — so it is the reflex answer for any 'borrowed from' question. It cannot be the source here for a structural reason: the United Kingdom has no written constitution, and therefore no Part to copy. The nearest British ancestor is the 'Instrument of Instructions' under the Government of India Act, 1935, an administrative direction, not a chapter of a constitution.
• (b)Switzerland — Switzerland contributes nothing to the standard list of features borrowed by the Indian Constitution. Its distinctive institutions have no Indian counterpart at all: a seven-member collegial Federal Council in place of a Prime Minister and Cabinet, the compulsory and optional referendum, the popular initiative, and direct democracy at cantonal level. The option is present because Switzerland reads as a plausible European federal model, not because any provision of Part IV traces to Berne.
• (d)None of the above — This would mean the Directive Principles came from none of the three named constitutions, which is exactly wrong — Ireland is on the list, and the attribution is textual rather than merely conventional, as the parallel wording of Irish Article 45 and Indian Articles 37, 38 and 39 shows. On a paper where option (d) is 'None of the above' this often, it is worth treating the option as a claim to be disproved rather than a refuge.

The Directive Principles of State Policy are Part IV of the Constitution, Articles 36 to 51. Article 37 fixes their character: they 'shall not be enforceable by any court, but the principles therein laid down are nevertheless fundamental in the governance of the country and it shall be the duty of the State to apply these principles in making laws'. They are therefore non-justiciable but not decorative — a citizen cannot sue on them, yet no government can ignore them without political cost, and courts read them as an aid to interpreting the Fundamental Rights. The familiar textbook grouping into socialistic, Gandhian and liberal-intellectual principles is a teaching device: the Constitution itself sets out Part IV as one undivided list. Part IV has grown by amendment — Articles 39A (equal justice and free legal aid), 43A (participation of workers in management of industries) and 48A (protection and improvement of environment) were inserted by the 42nd Amendment, 1976; Article 38(2), on minimising inequalities in income, status, facilities and opportunities, by the 44th Amendment, 1978; Article 43B, on the promotion of co-operative societies, by the 97th Amendment, 2011; and Article 45 was recast by the 86th Amendment, 2002 into a duty of early childhood care and education for children below six years, once Article 21A had made elementary education a Fundamental Right.

There are two routes to the answer, and the second is the one worth training. The first is straight recall of the borrowed-features table, in which the Directive Principles are paired with Ireland — the most stable pairing on the whole list. The second is elimination on principle, for the day the table slips. Ask what kind of provision the stem is describing: a written schedule of social and economic goals that the legislature must pursue and the courts may not enforce. Britain has no written constitution at all, so no Part could have been lifted from it, and its contribution to India is machinery — Parliament, Cabinet, Speaker, writs — rather than aims. Switzerland appears on no standard list of Indian borrowings. Only Ireland's Constitution contains a chapter of that description, and its Article 45 carries that exact non-justiciability formula. That single feature, judicially unenforceable yet constitutionally binding on the legislature, is the discriminating fact. Carry the rest of the Irish package too, because it is examinable and it also checks out in the text: Article 18 of the Irish Constitution builds Seanad panels from persons with knowledge of 'National Language and Culture, Literature, Art, Education', which is the ancestor of India's Article 80(3), under which the President nominates twelve members of the Rajya Sabha for 'Literature, science, art and social service'; and Ireland's Article 12.2.3° elects its President 'on the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote', the exact phrase India's Article 55(3) uses. Note the difference examiners like: the Irish President is chosen by direct vote of the people, India's by an electoral college, so what India adopted was the counting method, not the electorate.

• Part IV runs from Article 36 to Article 51; Article 37 provides that its principles 'shall not be enforceable by any court, but the principles therein laid down are nevertheless fundamental in the governance of the country'
• The model is Article 45 of the Constitution of Ireland (1937), headed 'Directive Principles of Social Policy', which states that the principles are 'intended for the general guidance of the Oireachtas' and 'shall not be cognisable by any Court under any of the provisions of this Constitution'
• The borrowing is textual: Irish Article 45.2.ii and Indian Article 39(b) both require that 'the ownership and control of the material resources of the community' be 'so distributed as best to subserve the common good', and Irish Article 45.1 and Indian Article 38(1) share almost their whole sentence
• Ireland itself drew on the Spanish Republican Constitution of 1931 and on Catholic social teaching, which is why the Irish text speaks of 'justice and charity' where the Indian text speaks of 'justice, social, economic and political'
• The other two features standard texts credit to Ireland also survive a check against the text — Article 80(1)(a) and 80(3), twelve Rajya Sabha members nominated by the President for 'Literature, science, art and social service', against the Irish Seanad's nominated members and vocational panels under Article 18; and Article 55(3)'s 'proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote' for electing the President, against Ireland's Article 12.2.3°
• Part IV has been amended repeatedly: Articles 39A, 43A and 48A added by the 42nd Amendment, 1976; Article 38(2) added by the 44th Amendment, 1978 (with effect from 20 June 1979); Article 43B added by the 97th Amendment, 2011; and Article 45 recast by the 86th Amendment, 2002
• Article 51, the last Directive Principle, is the only one addressed to foreign policy — the promotion of international peace and security, respect for international law and treaty obligations, and the settlement of international disputes by arbitration
• The relationship with Part III has been litigated for seventy years: State of Madras v. Champakam Dorairajan (1951) held that Directive Principles must run subsidiary to Fundamental Rights, while Minerva Mills v. Union of India (1980) held that the harmony and balance between the two is an essential feature of the basic structure

• Answering 'Britain' out of habit because most borrowed features are British — Britain has no written constitution and so no Part IV to lend
• Confusing Ireland's Article 45 with India's Article 45; the numbers coincide, but India's Article 45 is the specific directive on early childhood care and education, not the chapter heading
• Assuming the socialistic, Gandhian and liberal-intellectual grouping appears in the Constitution — it is a textbook classification, and Part IV is one undivided list

BPSC asks the borrowing as a bare one-line pairing — which country gave India this feature — and keeps 'None of the above' at option (d) to catch a candidate who half-remembers the table. UPSC almost never asks it that plainly: in 2003 it built a four-pair matching item out of the same content, pairing the Directive Principles with Ireland, the Fundamental Rights with the USA, the Concurrent List with Australia and the strong-Centre federation with Canada, and otherwise it tests the substance of Part IV — which article carries which directive, what the 42nd Amendment added, and whether Part IV limits the legislative and executive functions. Learn the source country for BPSC and the article number plus amendment history for UPSC.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following features of the Indian Constitution is NOT drawn from the Constitution of Ireland?

  • (a)Directive Principles of State Policy
  • (b)Nomination of members to the Rajya Sabha
  • (c)Method of election of the President
  • (d)Procedure established by law

  Answer(d) Procedure established by law — that phrase in Article 21 is taken from the Constitution of Japan. The other three are the standard Irish borrowings, and each can be matched to Irish text: Article 45, Article 18 and Article 12.2.3° respectively.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which Article of the Constitution of India declares that the Directive Principles of State Policy shall not be enforceable by any court?

  • (a)Article 32
  • (b)Article 36
  • (c)Article 37
  • (d)Article 51

  Answer(c) Article 37 — it makes Part IV non-justiciable while calling the principles 'fundamental in the governance of the country'. Article 36 only defines 'the State' for Part IV, and Article 51 is the directive on international peace and security.