BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims Q75: Under which Article of the Indian Constitution the Annual

Q: What is the answer to BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims Q75?

A. Correct — A, Article 112. The Article is headed 'Annual financial statement' and its first clause reads: 'The President shall in respect of every financial year cause to be laid before both the Houses of Parliament a statement of the estimated receipts and expenditure of the Government of India for that year, in this Part referred to as the "annual financial statement".' Two details in that sentence are frequently examined. It is laid before *both* Houses — the Rajya Sabha may discuss the Budget even though it cannot vote the demands for grants. And the laying is done by the President, formally speaking; the Finance Minister presents it on the President's recommendation. The word 'Budget' appears nowhere in the Constitution: annual financial statement is its constitutional name, and the stem puts 'Budget' in brackets precisely because the two are the same document. Article 112 goes on to structure the statement. Clause (2) requires the estimates of expenditure to show separately the sums charged upon the Consolidated Fund of India and the sums for other expenditure, and to distinguish revenue-account expenditure from the rest. Clause (3) then lists what is charged — the President's emoluments, the salaries of the presiding officers of both Houses, debt charges, the salaries and pensions of Supreme Court judges, the pensions of High Court judges, the salary and pension of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and any sums needed to satisfy a court or arbitral award. Every other option on this list is a real, adjacent Article, and each does a different job in the same sequence.

BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims General Studies · Question 75 of 142

Verified against the official question booklet. Answer derived — no official key exists for this edition.

Answers derived, not from the official key. BPSC published an answer key for BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam at the time, but it is no longer available from the Commission or in any web archive. The answers here are our best-supported answers — solved from the question itself and cross-checked against primary sources — and each card says how certain it is. The question text is verbatim from the official booklet. These are not the Commission's answer key.

Question order, option order and answers follow the official BPSC Booklet Series I, paper code 01/BPP/GO/CC/PT-2025(Y).

Under which Article of the Indian Constitution the Annual Financial Statement (Budget) is necessary to be laid before the Parliament ?

(a)Article 112
(b)Article 111
(c)Article 114
(d)Article 113

Answer

Why

Correct — A, Article 112. The Article is headed 'Annual financial statement' and its first clause reads: 'The President shall in respect of every financial year cause to be laid before both the Houses of Parliament a statement of the estimated receipts and expenditure of the Government of India for that year, in this Part referred to as the "annual financial statement".' Two details in that sentence are frequently examined. It is laid before *both* Houses — the Rajya Sabha may discuss the Budget even though it cannot vote the demands for grants. And the laying is done by the President, formally speaking; the Finance Minister presents it on the President's recommendation. The word 'Budget' appears nowhere in the Constitution: annual financial statement is its constitutional name, and the stem puts 'Budget' in brackets precisely because the two are the same document. Article 112 goes on to structure the statement. Clause (2) requires the estimates of expenditure to show separately the sums charged upon the Consolidated Fund of India and the sums for other expenditure, and to distinguish revenue-account expenditure from the rest. Clause (3) then lists what is charged — the President's emoluments, the salaries of the presiding officers of both Houses, debt charges, the salaries and pensions of Supreme Court judges, the pensions of High Court judges, the salary and pension of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and any sums needed to satisfy a court or arbitral award. Every other option on this list is a real, adjacent Article, and each does a different job in the same sequence.

Why the others are wrong

(b)Article 111 — Article 111 is 'Assent to Bills' and has nothing to do with the Budget as such: when a Bill has been passed by both Houses it is presented to the President, who must declare that he assents or withholds assent, with a proviso allowing him to return a Bill that is not a Money Bill for reconsideration — and if the Houses pass it again, he shall not withhold assent. It sits immediately before the financial Articles in the text, which is the only reason it is here.
(c)Article 114 — Article 114 is the Appropriation Bill — the stage after the demands for grants have been voted, by which the money the House has granted is legally withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund of India. It is the last step in the chain rather than the first: nothing may leave the Fund without an Appropriation Act, but that Act only exists once the statement laid under Article 112 has been through Article 113.
(d)Article 113 — The nearest miss, and worth learning precisely. Article 113 is 'Procedure in Parliament with respect to estimates' — it provides that the estimates relating to expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund 'shall not be submitted to the vote of Parliament, but nothing in this clause shall be construed as preventing the discussion' of them, and it sends the rest to the House of the People as demands for grants. It governs what Parliament does with the statement after it arrives, not the laying of it.

Concept

Parliament's control of public money runs through a fixed chain of Articles, and questions of this type are really asking you to place one link. Article 112 requires the annual financial statement to be laid before both Houses, split between charged and voted expenditure. Article 113 divides the two: charged expenditure may be discussed but not voted, while the rest goes to the Lok Sabha alone as demands for grants, which the House may assent to, refuse, or assent to with a reduction — the last of these being the cut motion. Article 114 turns the voted grants into an Appropriation Bill, without which no money may be withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund. Article 115 covers supplementary, additional and excess grants when the year's estimates prove wrong, and Article 116 provides the vote on account, the vote of credit and the exceptional grant. Article 117 requires the President's recommendation for financial Bills. Behind the whole sequence stands Article 266, which creates the Consolidated Fund itself, and Article 148, which creates the Comptroller and Auditor-General to audit the spending afterwards. The design is that money is estimated, voted, appropriated, spent and then audited — with a different Article for each stage.

The safest way to hold Articles 111 to 116 is by the verb in each heading rather than by the number. 111 assents. 112 lays. 113 votes. 114 appropriates. 115 supplements. 116 advances. Read the stem for its verb — here 'laid before the Parliament' — and the Article follows. If the numbers slip, one structural clue survives: the financial Articles come in order of the process, so the first thing that happens in the budget cycle must have the lowest number among the financial ones, and laying the statement is the first thing that happens. That points to 112 over 113 and 114. The one genuine trap is Article 113, because 'procedure with respect to estimates' sounds like it might cover presenting them; it does not, it covers voting on them. Note also that the charged expenditure list in Article 112(3) is itself examinable — it is designed to put the independence of the President, the presiding officers, the higher judiciary and the CAG beyond an annual vote, and that rationale is worth carrying alongside the list.

Key facts

Article 112(1), verbatim: 'The President shall in respect of every financial year cause to be laid before both the Houses of Parliament a statement of the estimated receipts and expenditure of the Government of India for that year, in this Part referred to as the "annual financial statement".'
Article 112(2) requires the estimates to show separately the sums charged upon the Consolidated Fund of India and the sums for other expenditure, and to distinguish revenue-account expenditure from the rest.
Article 112(3) lists the charged expenditure — the President's emoluments; salaries of the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Council of States and the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House of the People; debt charges; salaries and pensions of Supreme Court judges and pensions of High Court judges; the salary and pension of the CAG; and sums to satisfy any judgment, decree or award.
Article 113(1) provides that charged expenditure 'shall not be submitted to the vote of Parliament' though it may be discussed; Article 114 provides for the Appropriation Bill.
Article 111 is assent to Bills; Articles 115 and 116 cover supplementary, additional and excess grants, and the vote on account, vote of credit and exceptional grant.

The budget chain — one Article for each stage, in order

Article 112 — Annual financial statement→The President causes the statement of estimated receipts and expenditure to be LAID before both Houses, split into charged and other expenditure.

Article 113 — Procedure with respect to estimates→Charged expenditure may be discussed but NOT VOTED; the rest goes to the House of the People as demands for grants, which it may reduce.

Article 114 — Appropriation Bill→The voted grants are APPROPRIATED; no money leaves the Consolidated Fund without an Appropriation Act.

Articles 115 and 116→Supplementary, additional and excess grants; and the vote on account, vote of credit and exceptional grant.

Article 111 — Assent to Bills→General presidential assent, not part of the budget chain at all — its presence on the option list is purely its proximity in the text.

The stem's verb is 'laid before', which is the first stage and therefore the lowest-numbered financial Article. Everything below the highlighted row happens after the statement has already arrived.

Study next

The six stages of the Union Budget in Parliament — presentation, general discussion, standing committee scrutiny, voting on demands for grants, Appropriation Bill, Finance BillCharged versus voted expenditure under Articles 112(3) and 113(1), and why the charged list protects independent officesCut motions — policy cut, economy cut and token cut — and the guillotine on the last allotted dayThe three funds: Consolidated Fund (Article 266(1)), Public Account (Article 266(2)) and Contingency Fund (Article 267)Money Bills under Article 110, the Rajya Sabha's fourteen-day role under Article 109, and the CAG's post-audit under Articles 148 to 151

Common traps

Choosing Article 113 because its heading mentions estimates. It governs how Parliament votes on the estimates, not the laying of the statement.
Assuming the Budget is laid only before the Lok Sabha. Article 112 says both Houses; it is the voting on demands for grants under Article 113 that belongs to the Lok Sabha alone.
Looking for the word 'Budget' in the Constitution. It does not appear — the constitutional term is annual financial statement.

BPSC pins parliamentary procedure to Article numbers and builds its wrong options from the immediate neighbours in the text, so a candidate who knows the topic but not the numbering still has to guess. The 70th CCE paper of December 2024 did the same thing one stage further down the chain, asking what a cut motion is for. UPSC almost never asks for an Article number; it asks which statement about the process is not correct, or where a particular kind of expenditure is charged.

Related PYQs

UPSC_2004_GS1_Q572004Open & attempt →

With reference to Indian Parliament, which one of the following is not correct?

(a) The Appropriation Bill must be passed by both the Houses of Parliament before it can be enacted into law
(b) No money shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund of India except under the appropriation made by the Appropriation Act
(c) Finance Bill is required for proposing new taxes but no another Bill/Act is required for making changes in the rates of taxes which are already under operation
(d) No Money Bill can be introduced except on the recommendation of the President

Answer(a) The Appropriation Bill must be passed by both the Houses of Parliament before it can be enacted into law

Works the same chain from the far end. Article 114's Appropriation Bill is a Money Bill, so it does not need the Rajya Sabha's passage — the contrast with Article 112, where the statement goes to both Houses, is exactly the distinction this card turns on.

UPSC_2002_GS1_Q312002Open & attempt →

The salaries and allowances of the Judges of the High Court are charged on the

(a) Consolidated Fund of India
(b) Consolidated Fund of the State
(c) Contingency Fund of India
(d) Contingency Fund of the State

Answer(b) Consolidated Fund of the State

Tests the charged-expenditure idea that Article 112(3) creates at the Union level and Article 202(3) mirrors in the States — the device by which judges' pay is kept off the annual vote so that a legislature cannot discipline the judiciary through the Budget.

BPSC_2024_PRE_PaperI_Q32024Open & attempt →

What is the object of “cut motion” in Parliament ?

(a) To restrict day-to-day financial expenditure of the government
(b) To move a proposal to reduce expenditure in the budget proposals
(c) To restrict the grants of the Government
(d) To restrict grants from consolidated fund of India

Answer(b) To move a proposal to reduce expenditure in the budget proposals

The 70th CCE paper of December 2024 asked about the very next link in this chain. The cut motion is the House exercising its Article 113(2) power to assent to a demand 'subject to a reduction' — which only becomes possible once the statement has been laid under Article 112.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Under which Article of the Constitution is the Appropriation Bill provided for ?
- (a)Article 110
- (b)Article 112
- (c)Article 114
- (d)Article 117
Answer(c) Article 114 — the stage at which the grants voted by the House of the People are appropriated, without which no money may be withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund of India.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which of the following is NOT expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund of India under Article 112(3) ?
- (a)The salary and pension of the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India
- (b)Debt charges for which the Government of India is liable
- (c)The salaries and allowances of Union Ministers
- (d)The emoluments and allowances of the President
Answer(c) The salaries and allowances of Union Ministers — these are votable expenditure. The other three are expressly listed as charged in Article 112(3), which is what keeps them beyond an annual vote.