BPSC 71st CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 57 of 150

Correct — B, He gives advice to the President on legal matters. The provision is Article 76(2): 'It shall be the duty of the Attorney-General to give advice to the Government of India upon such legal matters, and to perform such other duties of a legal character, as may from time to time be referred or assigned to him by the President, and to discharge the functions conferred on him by or under this Constitution or any other law for the time being in force.' Advisory work is not one incidental task among many — the Constitution frames it as the Attorney-General's duty, and it is the only one of the four propositions in this question that the constitutional text supports. Around it sit the rest of Article 76: clause (1), the President appoints as Attorney-General a person qualified to be appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court; clause (3), he 'shall have right of audience in all courts in the territory of India'; clause (4), he holds office during the pleasure of the President and receives such remuneration as the President may determine. Article 88 completes the picture from the parliamentary side: every Minister and the Attorney-General has the right to speak in, and otherwise to take part in the proceedings of, either House, any joint sitting, and any committee of Parliament of which he may be named a member — but shall not by virtue of that article be entitled to vote. One honest calibration, because a careful student will notice it and should not be left confused. The article's own words route the advice to the Government of India on matters referred by the President; the option's 'gives advice to the President' is the loose textbook rendering the Commission chose. It is nevertheless the right answer on this paper, and not merely by elimination: the President is the constitutional trigger for the whole advisory function — nothing reaches the Attorney-General as a duty unless it is referred or assigned by the President — so the option captures the operative relationship even though it compresses the wording. The three rival options, by contrast, each assert something the constitutional text directly contradicts, and the Commission said as much for option (d) when it disposed of objections on 31 October 2025, citing D. D. Basu's Introduction to the Constitution of India (26th edition, 2022) at page 233.

• (a)Is not entitled of audience except the Supreme Court — This inverts Article 76(3), which is unusually generous: the Attorney-General 'shall have right of audience in all courts in the territory of India' — every High Court, every district and subordinate court, every tribunal, not the Supreme Court alone. The option is tempting because the Attorney-General is popularly pictured only in the Supreme Court, where the Union's constitutional litigation is argued, and because ordinary advocates are enrolled with a single State Bar Council.
• (c)Cannot participate in the proceedings in the House of Parliament — The exact opposite of Article 88, which gives the Attorney-General the right to speak in and otherwise take part in the proceedings of either House, any joint sitting, and any parliamentary committee of which he is named a member. What he cannot do is vote — Article 88 withholds that expressly. The distractor works on candidates who half-remember the correct 'no vote' rule and over-generalise it into 'no participation at all'.
• (d)Is a whole time counsel for the government — The option BPSC was formally challenged on, and the one it defended in writing. The Attorney-General is not a whole-time counsel for the Government and is not a government servant; he is therefore not debarred from private practice, subject to the standing restriction that he must not advise or hold a brief against the Government of India. The Commission's published remark rests this on D. D. Basu's Introduction to the Constitution of India, 26th edition (2022), page 233.

The Attorney-General is the first law officer of the Government of India and the only law officer the Constitution itself creates — Article 76 sits in Part V, among the organs of the Union, not in the chapter on the judiciary. Four features define the office and each one is examinable. Appointment and qualification: the President appoints a person qualified to be a Judge of the Supreme Court, which means a citizen who has been a High Court judge for five years, or a High Court advocate for ten, or is in the President's opinion a distinguished jurist. Tenure: Article 76(4) makes it a pleasure post, so there is no fixed term, no security-of-tenure procedure and no removal machinery — a sharp contrast with the Comptroller and Auditor-General under Article 148, who can be removed only in the manner provided for a Supreme Court judge. Function: advice and such legal duties as the President refers, plus the functions conferred by the Constitution or any law. Reach: right of audience in all courts under Article 76(3), and the right to speak in Parliament under Article 88 without the right to vote — and because Article 105(4) extends parliamentary privileges to persons who have the right to speak in a House, the Attorney-General carries those privileges too. Note also what the Constitution does not create: the Solicitor General and the Additional Solicitors General are not mentioned in it at all. Article 165 sets up the parallel office of Advocate-General for each State, and Article 177 gives that officer the same speak-but-not-vote right in the State legislature.

The safest route through this question is to test each proposition against the article it belongs to, because all four are checkable and three are checkably false. Option (a) fails on Article 76(3), which grants a right of audience in all courts in the territory of India, so any option that confines him to one court is wrong on its face. Option (c) fails on Article 88, which grants participation in both Houses, joint sittings and committees; the only thing withheld is the vote. Option (d) fails on the nature of the office — the Attorney-General is not a government servant and not a whole-time counsel, which is exactly why he may keep a private practice and why he is paid a retainer determined by the President under Article 76(4) rather than a salary fixed by statute. That leaves (b), which Article 76(2) supports. The single discriminating fact, if you have time for only one, is the phrase 'in all courts' in Article 76(3) — it kills (a) outright and it signals the general character of the office as a counsel with a nationwide brief rather than an employee posted to one forum. The trap in this question is subtler than usual. Option (c) is not a wild claim; it is a true rule with one word changed, because 'cannot vote' really is the law and 'cannot participate' is not. BPSC does this often — take a correct proposition and widen it by a single verb. Read every negative option twice and ask which precise power is being denied.

• Article 76(2): it is the duty of the Attorney-General to give advice to the Government of India upon such legal matters, and perform such other duties of a legal character, as may from time to time be referred or assigned to him by the President — the clause on which the official key rests.
• Article 76(1) and 76(4): appointed by the President from among persons qualified to be a Judge of the Supreme Court; holds office during the pleasure of the President and receives such remuneration as the President may determine — a pleasure post with no fixed term and no removal procedure, unlike the CAG under Article 148.
• Article 76(3): the Attorney-General has the right of audience in all courts in the territory of India — the widest audience right the Constitution confers on any advocate.
• Article 88: every Minister and the Attorney-General may speak in and take part in the proceedings of either House, any joint sitting of the Houses, and any committee of Parliament of which he is named a member, but shall not by virtue of that article be entitled to vote; Article 105(4) extends parliamentary privileges to persons holding that right to speak.
• The Attorney-General is not a whole-time counsel for the Government and not a government servant, so private practice is not barred — subject to the standing restriction against advising or holding a brief against the Government of India; BPSC defended this in its 31 October 2025 remarks citing D. D. Basu, Introduction to the Constitution of India, 26th edition (2022), page 233. The Solicitor General, by contrast, is nowhere named in the Constitution, while Article 165 creates the Advocate-General of a State.

• Reading Article 76(3) as a Supreme Court-only right of audience — it expressly covers all courts in the territory of India
• Widening the true rule 'the Attorney-General cannot vote in Parliament' into the false claim 'he cannot participate in Parliament' — Article 88 grants participation and withholds only the vote
• Treating the Attorney-General as a full-time government servant — he is neither, which is why he may retain a private practice, and it is the point the Commission answered objections on

BPSC prints four freestanding, unnumbered propositions and asks you to spot the single true one, so the whole question is decided by whether you can test each sentence against its article — and when objections came, the Commission defended its choice with a page citation from D. D. Basu rather than from the bare text. UPSC almost never poses it that way: in 2000 it listed four attributes of the office and asked which held, in 2013 it asked what the Attorney-General may do inside the Lok Sabha, and in 2022 it tested whether the Solicitor General shares his Article 88 right and whether his resignation is constitutionally tied to the government's. Same syllabus line, different skill — BPSC rewards recall of the article, UPSC rewards knowing its edges.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Constitution of India, the Attorney-General of India has the right of audience in

  • (a)The Supreme Court only
  • (b)The Supreme Court and the High Courts only
  • (c)All courts in the territory of India
  • (d)All courts in the territory of India except courts-martial

  Answer(c) All courts in the territory of India — the express words of Article 76(3); no forum is carved out of the right by the Constitution.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following law officers is NOT mentioned in the Constitution of India?

  • (a)Attorney-General of India
  • (b)Solicitor General of India
  • (c)Advocate-General of a State
  • (d)Comptroller and Auditor-General of India

  Answer(b) Solicitor General of India — the Constitution creates the Attorney-General (Article 76), the Advocate-General of a State (Article 165) and the CAG (Article 148), but never names the Solicitor General, who is an appointment made outside the Constitution.