BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims General Studies · Question 99 of 142

Correct — B, Without the consent of any State. The stem is a paraphrase of Article 253, and the Article answers it in its opening words: 'Notwithstanding anything in the foregoing provisions of this Chapter, Parliament has power to make any law for the whole or any part of the territory of India for implementing any treaty, agreement or convention with any other country or countries or any decision made at any international conference, association or other body.' Everything turns on that non obstante clause. The 'foregoing provisions of this Chapter' are the ordinary distribution of legislative power — Article 246 and the Seventh Schedule, which reserve the State List to the States, and Articles 249, 250 and 252, which set out the narrow routes by which Parliament may enter the State List. Article 253 sweeps all of them aside for one purpose. If a treaty obligation requires legislation on a subject that would otherwise be exclusively the States', Parliament may simply legislate; no State's assent is asked for, no resolution is required, and no State can opt out. The three rejected options each import a consent requirement that belongs to a different Article. Article 252 is the one that genuinely needs State consent, and reading it beside 253 is the fastest way to see why (b) must be right: 252 works only 'if resolutions to that effect are passed by all the Houses of the Legislatures of those States', and 253 begins by disapplying exactly that scheme. It is also worth knowing that UPSC set this same question in 2000 in almost identical words and its published key names 'without the consent of any State' — the text at option (B) here. That is independent corroboration of the constitutional position; it is not this Commission's key, which was never published.

• (a)With the consent of States concerned — This is Article 252, transplanted to the wrong Article. Under 252 Parliament may legislate for two or more States on a matter otherwise outside its competence only if all the Houses of those States' Legislatures pass resolutions asking it to, and the resulting Act binds only those States plus any other that later adopts it by resolution. Article 253 exists precisely to dispense with that machinery, because a treaty obligation binds the Union internationally and cannot be left to depend on State-by-State assent.
• (c)With the consent of the majority of States — No provision of the Constitution makes Parliament's legislative power turn on the consent of a majority of States. Ratification by the Legislatures of not less than one-half of the States is required for certain constitutional amendments under the proviso to Article 368(2), and that is the requirement this option is echoing — but a law implementing a treaty is ordinary legislation, not a constitutional amendment, and Article 253 asks for nothing of the kind.
• (d)With the consent of all States — The furthest from the text. Unanimity among the States appears nowhere in the Constitution as a condition for Parliament to legislate; even the amendment procedure in Article 368 asks only for half. Requiring it here would let a single State's refusal make it impossible for India to honour a treaty it has signed, which is the exact outcome the non obstante clause in Article 253 was written to prevent.

The Constitution divides legislative power by Article 246 and the Seventh Schedule — Union List, State List, Concurrent List — and then provides five ways for Parliament to reach into the State List, each with its own trigger. Article 249: the Council of States resolves by not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting that a named State List matter should be legislated on in the national interest, and Parliament may then do so for as long as the resolution stands, which is up to one year at a time. Article 250: a Proclamation of Emergency is in operation, and Parliament may legislate on any State List matter for its duration. Article 252: two or more State Legislatures pass resolutions inviting Parliament to legislate, and the resulting law applies to them and to any State that adopts it later. Article 253: a treaty, agreement, convention or decision of an international conference requires implementation, and Parliament may legislate for the whole or any part of India with no State involvement at all. Article 356: the State's own legislative power is exercised by or under the authority of Parliament during President's rule. Article 253 is the widest of the five in one respect and the narrowest in another — it needs no one's permission, but only for the purpose of implementing an international commitment.

Approach this family of questions by asking what the trigger is, because each Article has exactly one. Rajya Sabha resolution: 249. Emergency: 250. State resolutions: 252. International obligation: 253. President's rule: 356. Once the triggers are separated, an option that offers 'consent of the States concerned' for a treaty question is visibly the answer to a different Article. Article 253 also has a real footprint in Indian law, which is worth carrying as evidence rather than as theory. The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 opens by reciting that decisions were taken at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held at Stockholm in June 1972, in which India participated — the Article 253 hook of a 'decision made at any international conference'. Environment, forests and wildlife questions sit awkwardly across the lists, and the treaty route is how a national framework was built over them. The wider constitutional point is that India's federalism is asymmetric on purpose: treaty-making is an executive power of the Union, and Article 253 makes sure the corresponding legislative power is not blocked by the States, so that the country can speak with one voice abroad and still deliver at home.

• Article 253 in full: 'Notwithstanding anything in the foregoing provisions of this Chapter, Parliament has power to make any law for the whole or any part of the territory of India for implementing any treaty, agreement or convention with any other country or countries or any decision made at any international conference, association or other body.'
• Article 252 is the contrast: Parliament may legislate for two or more States only 'if resolutions to that effect are passed by all the Houses of the Legislatures of those States', and the Act then applies to those States and to any other that adopts it later by resolution.
• Article 249 requires a Council of States resolution supported by not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting, and lasts for a period not exceeding one year at a time; Article 250 operates only while a Proclamation of Emergency is in force.
• The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 recites in its opening words the decisions taken at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm in June 1972 — the classic Article 253 enactment.
• Ratification by the Legislatures of not less than one-half of the States is required only for the entrenched clauses of the Constitution under the proviso to Article 368(2), and has nothing to do with ordinary legislation implementing a treaty.

• Importing Article 252's consent requirement into Article 253. Only 252 needs State resolutions; 253 opens by disapplying the whole of that chapter's scheme.
• Confusing legislative consent with amendment ratification. The one-half-of-the-States requirement belongs to the proviso to Article 368(2) and to constitutional amendments, not to ordinary law.
• Assuming Article 253 is a general override. It is unlimited as to subject but tightly limited as to purpose — the law must be for implementing a treaty, agreement, convention or decision of an international body.

BPSC asks this as a sentence to be completed from the text of the Article, and this re-examination of January 2025 reproduces a Union Public Service Commission stem of 2000 almost word for word, with the options merely reordered. UPSC's own current habit is different: it embeds Article 253 in a statement set about Centre–State legislative relations, or reaches it through an environmental law question, so recognising the sentence is no longer enough there.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under which Article may Parliament legislate on a State List subject only after the Legislatures of two or more States have passed resolutions requesting it to do so ?

  • (a)Article 249
  • (b)Article 250
  • (c)Article 252
  • (d)Article 253

  Answer(c) Article 252 — the resulting Act applies to those States and to any other State that afterwards adopts it by a resolution of its Legislature. Article 249 needs a Rajya Sabha resolution, Article 250 a Proclamation of Emergency, and Article 253 no consent at all.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 was enacted to give effect to decisions taken at which international conference ?

  • (a)The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, 1972
  • (b)The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, 1992
  • (c)The Third Conference of the Parties, Kyoto, 1997
  • (d)The Twenty-first Conference of the Parties, Paris, 2015

  Answer(a) The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, 1972 — the Act's opening words recite those decisions, and it is the standard illustration of legislation under Article 253.