BPSC 70th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 36 of 143

Correct — A, State Legislature. Article 243J is one sentence long and it names the authority in its opening words: 'The Legislature of a State may, by law, make provisions with respect to the maintenance of accounts by the Panchayats and the auditing of such accounts.' Nothing is left to inference — the power to prescribe how a Gram Panchayat, a Panchayat Samiti or a Zila Parishad keeps its books, and how those books are audited, belongs to the State Legislature and to no one else. That is not an accident of drafting but the design of the whole of Part IX. Local government is a State subject under Entry 5 of the State List, and when the Constitution (Seventy-third Amendment) Act, 1992 inserted Articles 243 to 243-O with effect from 24 April 1993, it gave Panchayati Raj a constitutional floor without taking the subject away from the States. So Part IX repeatedly uses the same formula: Article 243C leaves the composition of Panchayats to the State Legislature, Article 243F its disqualifications, Article 243G the powers and responsibilities to be devolved from the Eleventh Schedule's 29 subjects, Article 243H the taxes, duties and tolls a Panchayat may levy and the Panchayat funds, Article 243J their accounts and audit, and Article 243K the State Election Commission, whose Commissioner's conditions of service are fixed by the Governor by rule, subject to any law the State legislature makes. The Constitution sets the mandatory minimum — a three-tier structure, five-year terms, reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and not less than one-third of seats for women, a State Election Commission and a State Finance Commission — and the State Legislature fills in everything else. For a Bihar candidate the practical reading is direct: it is the Bihar Vidhan Sabha, not Parliament and not any officer, that legislates on how the state's panchayats keep and audit their accounts.

• (b)Parliament — Parliament wrote Part IX into the Constitution through the 73rd Amendment, and that is exactly why the option feels right — but the Part it wrote hands the operating power to the States. Parliament legislates directly for Panchayats only in Union Territories, under Article 243L, and it separately enacted PESA in 1996 to extend Part IX to Fifth Schedule areas. It does not prescribe accounts or audit for a State's panchayats.
• (c)State Finance Commission — The State Finance Commission is a real Part IX body, but it sits in Article 243-I, one article earlier, and its job is different: the Governor constitutes it every five years to review the financial position of the Panchayats and recommend how State taxes should be shared with them. It recommends; it does not legislate, and it has no role in prescribing how accounts are kept or audited.
• (d)District Collector — The Collector is an executive officer of the State Government with no constitutional power to make law at all. Part IX was written precisely to end the position in which elected village bodies existed at the pleasure of district administration, so an option that puts the Collector in charge of panchayat accounts inverts the object of the 73rd Amendment.

Before 1993 Panchayati Raj rested entirely on State statutes, so bodies could be superseded indefinitely and elections postponed for years. The Constitution (73rd Amendment) Act, 1992 changed that by inserting Part IX and the Eleventh Schedule, giving rural local government a constitutional floor. Part IX runs from Article 243 to Article 243-O and divides its provisions into two kinds. Some bind the State absolutely: Article 243B requires Panchayats at village, intermediate and district levels, with the intermediate tier optional in States under twenty lakh population; Article 243E fixes a five-year term and requires fresh elections within six months of dissolution; Article 243D reserves seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in proportion to population and not less than one-third of all seats for women; Article 243-I requires a State Finance Commission every five years; Article 243K creates a State Election Commission. The rest are enabling — they say 'the Legislature of a State may, by law' and leave the content to the State. Article 243J, on the maintenance and audit of accounts, is squarely in the second group.

The reliable method with any Part IX question is to ask two things: is this a mandatory floor or a matter left to the State, and if it is left to someone, is that someone a law-maker or a recommending body? Here the article's own wording answers both — 'The Legislature of a State may, by law' is the enabling formula, so the answer must be a legislature, and the only legislature with competence over a State's panchayats is that State's own. That test also disposes of the three wrong options in one move: the State Finance Commission recommends and cannot legislate, the District Collector executes and cannot legislate, and Parliament, although it can legislate, is not the legislature named. The single fact that discriminates option (a) from option (c) is the article number — 243-I is the Finance Commission, 243J is accounts and audit — and because these two sit next to each other and both sound financial, that pair is the whole difficulty of the question.

• Article 243J in full: 'The Legislature of a State may, by law, make provisions with respect to the maintenance of accounts by the Panchayats and the auditing of such accounts.'
• Part IX (Articles 243 to 243-O) and the Eleventh Schedule were inserted by the Constitution (73rd Amendment) Act, 1992, which came into force on 24 April 1993 — now observed as National Panchayati Raj Day
• Article 243-I: the Governor constitutes a State Finance Commission every five years to review the financial position of the Panchayats and recommend the sharing of State taxes with them
• The Eleventh Schedule lists 29 subjects that a State Legislature may devolve to Panchayats under Article 243G; the Twelfth Schedule's 18 subjects belong to municipalities under Part IX-A
• Article 243D reserves seats for SCs and STs in proportion to their population and not less than one-third of all seats, including chairperson offices, for women; Article 243E fixes the five-year term

• Confusing Article 243-I with Article 243J — the first creates the State Finance Commission, the second deals with accounts and audit
• Assuming that because Parliament passed the 73rd Amendment, Parliament also runs Panchayats; local government is a State subject and Part IX keeps it there
• Reading 'may, by law' as discretionary about the subject rather than about the timing — it identifies who legislates, and the answer to any 'may, by law' question in Part IX is the State Legislature

BPSC asks Part IX by naming the article number in the stem and offering four authorities, so a candidate who has memorised the article map scores in seconds while one who reasons from principle can still get there by asking who is a law-maker. UPSC prefers to hide the article number and describe the function instead — 'which authority recommends to the Governor the principles for determining the taxes appropriated by Panchayats' — which tests whether you can recognise Article 243-I without being told its number.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under which Article of the Constitution is the State Finance Commission constituted by the Governor to review the financial position of the Panchayats ?

  • (a)Article 243G
  • (b)Article 243H
  • (c)Article 243-I
  • (d)Article 243J

  Answer(c) Article 243-I — the Governor constitutes it every five years; Article 243J, next door, deals with the maintenance and audit of Panchayat accounts.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Eleventh Schedule of the Constitution, added by the 73rd Amendment, contains how many subjects that may be devolved to Panchayats ?

  • (a)18
  • (b)22
  • (c)29
  • (d)31

  Answer(c) 29 — the Twelfth Schedule, added by the 74th Amendment for municipalities, has 18.