BPSC 71st CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 61 of 150

Correct — B, Only 2 is correct. Statement 2 is a plain description of Articles 75 and 77 working together; statement 1 misplaces both the authority and the adviser. Begin with the text. Article 53(1) vests the executive power of the Union in the President. Article 77(1) requires that "All executive action of the Government of India shall be expressed to be taken in the name of the President." And Article 77(3) says in terms that "The President shall make rules for the more convenient transaction of the business of the Government of India, and for the allocation among Ministers of the said business." The rules made under that clause are the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961 and the Government of India (Transaction of Business) Rules, 1961. The First Schedule to the Allocation of Business Rules is the list of every Ministry and Department; the Second Schedule sets out the subjects allotted to each. Creating a new Ministry, splitting one, merging two or renaming a Department is therefore not an informal decision — it is legally an amendment to that First Schedule, ordered by the President on the Prime Minister's advice and notified through the Cabinet Secretariat. Handing a particular Ministry to a particular Minister travels the identical channel, and that is exactly what statement 2 says. Statement 1 goes wrong twice over. The formal authority is the President's, not the Prime Minister's; and the advice that moves the President is the Council of Ministers' under Article 74(1), a Council headed by the Prime Minister — never a civil servant's. The Cabinet Secretary heads the Secretariat that drafts and gazettes the notification, but no Ministry has ever come into existence on his advice. BPSC did not invent this pair either: UPSC Prelims 2009 put the same two statements to candidates and its key was also "2 only".

• (a)Only 1 is correct — Exactly inverted — statement 1 is the false one and statement 2 the true one, so this option is the mirror image of the key. It catches the candidate who knows that the Cabinet Secretariat is the nodal office for the Allocation of Business Rules, 1961 and slides from "the Secretariat issues it" to "the Cabinet Secretary advises it". The Secretariat drafts and gazettes; the President orders; the Prime Minister advises. Under Article 74(1) only the Council of Ministers can tender the advice that binds the President, and the Cabinet Secretary is not a member of it.
• (c)1 and 2 are correct — The classic wrong mark on a two-statement item. Statement 2 is unimpeachable, and a candidate who checks it, finds it right and stops reading marks "both". But statement 1 fails on the authority and again on the adviser, and one false statement is enough to sink the option. This is BPSC's standard construction: one line lifted more or less from the constitutional text, paired with one line that sounds like an accurate description of how Delhi actually works while naming the wrong office.
• (d)Neither 1 nor 2 is correct — Too sweeping — the option a candidate reaches for after deciding that the stem "feels" like a trick and that both lines must therefore be planted. Statement 2 is settled law: Article 75(1) has the President appoint Ministers on the Prime Minister's advice, and Article 77(3) has the President allocate the business of Government among them. Rejecting statement 2 means rejecting the Allocation of Business Rules, 1961, under which every portfolio in every Union government since has been assigned.

The Union executive runs on a legal form that never quite matches the political reality, and this question tests whether you know the form. Article 53(1) vests the executive power of the Union in the President, to be exercised by him either directly or through officers subordinate to him in accordance with the Constitution. Article 74(1) then supplies the machine that actually decides: a Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister at its head "to aid and advise the President who shall, in the exercise of his functions, act in accordance with such advice" — words made binding by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976, with the Forty-fourth Amendment, 1978 adding only a power to require the Council to reconsider its advice once. Article 75(1) has the President appoint the Prime Minister, and the other Ministers on the Prime Minister's advice; Article 75(1A), inserted by the Ninety-first Amendment, 2003, caps the Council at fifteen per cent of the strength of the House of the People. Article 77 completes the picture — 77(1) every executive act is expressed in the President's name, 77(2) an order authenticated as the rules prescribe cannot be challenged on the ground that it is not an order made by the President, and 77(3) the President makes the rules that both distribute Government business among Ministers and prescribe how it is transacted. Two 1961 instruments flow from clause (3): the Allocation of Business Rules, which list every Ministry and Department in a First Schedule and the subjects each owns in a Second Schedule, and the Transaction of Business Rules, which govern how a case is disposed of — which classes must go to the Cabinet, and which a Minister may decide alone.

Take a two-statement polity item apart into two separate questions — who holds the power, and on whose advice is it exercised — and mark a statement only if both halves survive. Statement 2 passes on both counts: the power-holder is the President and the adviser is the Prime Minister, which is Article 77(3) read with Article 75(1). Statement 1 fails on both: it makes the Prime Minister the power-holder, which no Article does, and the Cabinet Secretary the adviser, which no Article could. That is the single discriminator here, and it generalises — under Article 74(1) the only advice that binds the President is the Council of Ministers', so any statement that inserts a Secretary, a commission or a committee into the advice chain is false by construction, whatever that office may do administratively. Notice also what confirming statement 2 does to the option set: it kills (a) and (d) at once, because both deny statement 2, and the whole question collapses onto statement 1 alone. The trap is that statement 1 is not absurd. The Cabinet Secretariat really is the nodal office for the Allocation of Business Rules; it really does draft and gazette the notification; it works directly under the Prime Minister; and a new Ministry does in practice appear because the Prime Minister wants one. Every one of those clauses is true, and not one of them makes statement 1 true, because the statement is a claim about legal authority while the practice is a fact about paperwork. Candidates who reason from newspaper reality instead of from the text lose this mark.

• Article 53(1): the executive power of the Union is vested in the President and shall be exercised by him either directly or through officers subordinate to him in accordance with the Constitution.
• Article 77: (1) all executive action of the Government of India is expressed to be taken in the name of the President; (2) an order authenticated in the manner the rules specify cannot be questioned on the ground that it is not an order made by the President; (3) the President shall make rules for the more convenient transaction of Government business and for its allocation among Ministers.
• The rules framed under Article 77(3) are the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961 — First Schedule listing every Ministry and Department, Second Schedule listing the subjects allotted to each — and the Government of India (Transaction of Business) Rules, 1961; creating, merging or renaming a Ministry is legally an amendment to that First Schedule.
• Article 74(1) makes the Council of Ministers' advice binding on the President (Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976), subject to one power to require reconsideration (Forty-fourth Amendment, 1978); Article 75(1) has Ministers appointed by the President on the Prime Minister's advice; Article 75(1A), inserted by the Ninety-first Amendment, 2003, caps the Council of Ministers at 15% of the Lok Sabha's strength.
• The Cabinet Secretariat functions directly under the Prime Minister and processes the Allocation of Business notifications; the Cabinet Secretary is the senior-most civil servant of the Union and Secretary to the Cabinet — not a member of the Council of Ministers and not a constitutional adviser to the President.

• Treating the Cabinet Secretary as an adviser on the creation of Ministries — he heads the Secretariat that processes the notification, and Article 74(1) reserves advice to the Council of Ministers
• Forgetting that the President is the formal authority for nearly every Union executive act, however routine, because Article 77(1) requires it
• Verifying only the statement that sounds familiar and then marking 'both correct' — statement 2 being true says nothing about statement 1
• Confusing the Allocation of Business Rules with the Transaction of Business Rules; the first says who owns a subject, the second says how a file on it is disposed of

BPSC lifts a UPSC two-statement item almost intact and keeps the answer: this pair is UPSC Prelims 2009 with barely a word altered, and both keys read '2 only', so a candidate who had worked the old UPSC paper carried a free mark into the hall. That is the practical lesson about BPSC's polity section — it recycles rather than reinvents, and the older UPSC Prelims papers are live syllabus. UPSC itself has moved on and now asks this machinery obliquely: under which Article a set of rules was framed, or which authority may allocate business, rather than naming the office in the statement.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961 are made under which Article of the Constitution?

  • (a)Article 74
  • (b)Article 75
  • (c)Article 77
  • (d)Article 78

  Answer(c) Article 77 — clause (3) empowers the President to make rules for the more convenient transaction of Government business and for its allocation among Ministers. Article 74 is aid and advice, Article 75 the appointment of Ministers, Article 78 the Prime Minister's duty to inform the President.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Cabinet Secretariat of the Government of India functions under the direct charge of

  • (a)the President
  • (b)the Prime Minister
  • (c)the Ministry of Home Affairs
  • (d)the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs

  Answer(b) the Prime Minister — the Cabinet Secretariat works directly under the Prime Minister, not under any line Ministry; UPSC Prelims 2009 tested the same point by planting 'Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs' as the false option.