BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims General Studies · Question 43 of 142

Correct — B, 91st Constitutional Amendment. The Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act, 2003, which came into force on 1 January 2004, inserted Article 164(1A). That clause provides that the total number of Ministers, including the Chief Minister, in the Council of Ministers of a State shall not exceed FIFTEEN PER CENT of the total number of members of that State's Legislative Assembly, subject to a floor: the number shall not be less than twelve. States whose ministries exceeded the new ceiling on the day the amendment commenced were given six months to come into conformity. The same amendment inserted the parallel Article 75(1A) for the Union, capping the Council of Ministers including the Prime Minister at fifteen per cent of the strength of the House of the People. Work the arithmetic for Bihar and the provision stops being abstract: the Bihar Legislative Assembly has 243 members, fifteen per cent of 243 is 36.45, so Bihar may have at most 36 Ministers including the Chief Minister. For the Union, fifteen per cent of the Lok Sabha's 543 elected members is 81.45, giving a ceiling of 81. The 91st Amendment was not a stand-alone size cap; it was an anti-defection package passed because the Tenth Schedule of 1985 had failed. Alongside the two ceilings it inserted Articles 75(1B) and 164(1B), disqualifying a member who has been disqualified for defection from being appointed a Minister for the rest of that term; it inserted Article 361B, barring such a person from any remunerative political post; and it amended the Tenth Schedule to delete the exemption for a 'split' by one-third of a legislature party, leaving only a merger by two-thirds protected. The oversized 'jumbo' ministry and the one-third split were the two instruments by which defection had been bought, and the amendment closed both at once.

• (a)81st Constitutional Amendment — A reservation amendment, not a ministry one. The Constitution (Eighty-first Amendment) Act, in force from 9 June 2000, amended Article 16 to permit the government to treat the backlog of unfilled reserved vacancies as a separate and distinct class of vacancies to which the fifty per cent ceiling does not apply. It has nothing to do with Councils of Ministers.
• (c)86th Constitutional Amendment — The education amendment. The Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2002 inserted Article 21A making free and compulsory education for children aged six to fourteen a fundamental right, substituted Article 45 to cover early childhood care below six, and added Article 51A(k), the fundamental duty of a parent or guardian to provide education opportunities to a child aged six to fourteen.
• (d)None of the above Amendment — Available only if all three named amendments fail, and the 91st does not fail — Article 164(1A) is exactly the provision the stem describes. Note the printed phrasing of this option, 'None of the above Amendment', which is the Commission's own and is reproduced as it appears on the booklet.

The Council of Ministers is a creature of Articles 74 and 75 at the Union and Article 163 and 164 in a State. Article 164(1) says the Chief Minister is appointed by the Governor and the other Ministers are appointed by the Governor on the Chief Minister's advice; Article 164(2) makes the Council collectively responsible to the Legislative Assembly; Article 164(4) allows a Minister who is not a member of either House to hold office for six consecutive months only. Until 2003 nothing in the Constitution limited how many Ministers there could be, and the gap was exploited: expanding a ministry, or promising a berth, became a standard price for a defection, and 'jumbo' ministries drew repeated criticism from the Sarkaria Commission and the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution. The 91st Amendment closed the gap by writing the cap into the Constitution itself rather than leaving it to convention. Article 164(1A) is one of the few places where the Constitution puts a hard number on the executive.

This question is a straight amendment-number recall, and the reliable way to hold amendment numbers is by theme rather than by digit. Group them: the 42nd and 44th are the Emergency pair; the 52nd created the Tenth Schedule and the 91st repaired it; the 61st lowered the voting age to eighteen; the 73rd and 74th are panchayats and municipalities; the 86th is education; the 101st is GST; the 104th removed the Anglo-Indian nominated seats. Then note the near neighbours that the examiner will offer: the 92nd added four languages to the Eighth Schedule and the 93rd dealt with reservation in educational institutions, so both sit right beside the 91st and both are wrong here. The single distinguishing memory is that the 91st is the anti-defection follow-up of 2003, and that everything in it — the 15 per cent cap, the bar on a defector becoming a Minister, Article 361B — serves that one purpose. If you remember why the amendment was passed, you will not confuse it with the 81st or the 86th, whose purposes are entirely different.

• The Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act, 2003 came into force on 1 January 2004; it amended Articles 75 and 164, inserted Article 361B and amended the Tenth Schedule.
• Article 164(1A) caps a State Council of Ministers including the Chief Minister at 15 per cent of the Legislative Assembly's total strength, and sets a floor of twelve Ministers.
• Bihar's Legislative Assembly has 243 members, so the State's ministerial ceiling is 36 (15 per cent of 243 = 36.45); the Union ceiling is 81, from 15 per cent of the Lok Sabha's 543 elected seats.
• The same amendment deleted the Tenth Schedule's exemption for a one-third 'split', leaving only a two-thirds merger protected from disqualification for defection.
• The distractors belong elsewhere: the 81st Amendment (in force 9 June 2000) amended Article 16 on backlog reserved vacancies; the 86th Amendment, 2002 inserted Article 21A on the right to education.

• Reaching for the 52nd Amendment because the question smells of anti-defection. The 52nd created the Tenth Schedule in 1985; the size cap came only with the 91st in 2003.
• Applying the 15 per cent cap to the combined strength of both Houses in a bicameral State. It is 15 per cent of the Legislative ASSEMBLY alone, even though Ministers may sit in the Council.
• Forgetting the floor. In a small Assembly 15 per cent can fall below twelve, and Article 164(1A) then guarantees a minimum of twelve Ministers including the Chief Minister.

BPSC asks amendments by number and expects the number back — which amendment did X — and it has asked this very provision from the Union side in a recent paper, so both halves of the 91st should be held together. UPSC has asked the identical fact at least twice, once naming both the Centre and the State ceilings and once naming only the Lok Sabha, and it prefers to surround the 91st with its immediate neighbours the 90th, 92nd and 93rd rather than with unrelated amendments.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under Article 164(1A), the minimum number of Ministers including the Chief Minister in a State Council of Ministers shall not be less than

  • (a)Ten
  • (b)Twelve
  • (c)Fifteen
  • (d)There is no minimum prescribed

  Answer(b) Twelve — the same clause that caps the ministry at 15 per cent of the Assembly's strength also sets a floor of twelve, which matters for States with small Assemblies where 15 per cent would be a much smaller number.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act, 2003 made which of the following changes to the Tenth Schedule ?

  • (a)It raised the merger threshold from two-thirds to three-fourths
  • (b)It deleted the exemption available to a split by one-third of a legislature party
  • (c)It transferred the power to decide disqualification from the Speaker to the Election Commission
  • (d)It excluded the Speaker from the operation of the Schedule

  Answer(b) It deleted the exemption available to a split by one-third of a legislature party — after 2003 only a merger by two-thirds of the members of a legislature party is protected from disqualification for defection.