BPSC 71st CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 62 of 150

Correct — A, the language rule of Article 210. Article 210(1) reads: "Notwithstanding anything in Part XVII, but subject to the provisions of article 348, business in the Legislature of a State shall be transacted in the official language or languages of the State or in Hindi or in English." Option (a) reproduces that clause; the other three options each take a different Article of the same chapter and invert it. Article 177 gives every Minister and the Advocate-General the right to speak in and take part in the proceedings of a State Legislature but ends by saying he shall not by virtue of that article be entitled to vote, so option (b) asserts precisely what the Article denies. Article 211 says no discussion shall take place in a State Legislature with respect to the conduct of any Judge of the Supreme Court or of a High Court in the discharge of his duties, so option (c) removes a prohibition. Article 212(1) says the validity of any proceedings in a State Legislature shall not be called in question on the ground of any alleged irregularity of procedure, so option (d) deletes the word "not" and reverses the provision entirely. That is exactly the ground on which the Commission upheld this key when it disposed of candidate objections on 31 October 2025, article by article, citing D. D. Basu. One honest caveat about the printed wording, because it is the doubt a careful candidate will have had in the hall: Article 210 carries a proviso allowing the Speaker of the Assembly or the Chairman of the Council to permit a member who cannot adequately express himself in any of those languages to address the House in his mother tongue. The option's word "only" is therefore a shade stronger than the Article. It still leaves (a) the single option on the page that does not contradict the provision it is quoting, and on a "what is true" item you mark the best available statement, not the perfect one.

• (b)Advocate General has right to vote — The exact opposite of Article 177, which gives every Minister and the Advocate-General the right to speak in and otherwise take part in the proceedings of the Assembly — of both Houses where there is a Council — and of any committee he is named to, "but shall not, by virtue of this article, be entitled to vote". The words "by virtue of this article" are the whole trick: a Minister who is himself an MLA votes as a member, which is why the House looks as though the front bench votes freely. The Advocate-General is never a member. Appointed by the Governor under Article 165 from persons qualified to be a High Court judge, he holds office during the Governor's pleasure and has no vote in any State Legislature, ever.
• (c)It can discuss the conduct of any judge of the High Court also — Article 211 forbids it in flat terms: "No discussion shall take place in the Legislature of a State with respect to the conduct of any Judge of the Supreme Court or of a High Court in the discharge of his duties." What makes this the best-constructed distractor on the page is that the parallel Union provision is not absolute — Article 121 carries a proviso permitting Parliament to discuss a judge's conduct on a motion for an address to the President praying for his removal. Article 211 has no such proviso, and it needs none, because removal under Article 124(4) read with Article 217(1)(b) is Parliament's power alone. A State Legislature has no role in it and therefore no occasion to debate the judge.
• (d)Validity of proceedings shall be called in question on the ground of any alleged irregularity — Drops the crucial "not". Article 212(1) provides that the validity of any proceedings in a State Legislature shall NOT be called in question on the ground of any alleged irregularity of procedure, and 212(2) puts the presiding officer's powers to regulate procedure and maintain order beyond the jurisdiction of any court. Reversed as printed, the option would hand every disputed division and every guillotined Bill to a writ court. The immunity is not unlimited, though: the courts have read it as covering irregularity of procedure and not substantive illegality or unconstitutionality — the distinction drawn in the 2007 expulsion case Raja Ram Pal v. Hon'ble Speaker, Lok Sabha, on the identically worded Article 122.

Articles 208 to 212 form the "conduct of business" block of Chapter III of Part VI, and they mirror Articles 118 to 122 for Parliament almost clause for clause. Article 208(1) lets each House make rules regulating its own procedure and the conduct of its business; 208(3) lets the Governor, after consulting the Speaker and the Chairman, make rules for communication between the two Houses where a State is bicameral. Article 209 allows the State Legislature to regulate financial procedure by law. Article 210 fixes the language of business. Article 211 shields the higher judiciary from legislative debate about a judge's official conduct. Article 212 keeps the courts out of the House's internal procedure. Article 177 belongs to a different chapter — Chapter II, the State Executive, next to Article 165 on the Advocate-General — and supplies the classic law-officer formula of a voice without a vote, reproduced at the Union level by Article 88 for the Attorney-General. Read together the block encodes three separations. The language rule reconciles the Part XVII official-language scheme with the practical need for a federal working language, and it is expressly made subject to Article 348, under which the authoritative text of every Bill, Act and Ordinance is in English, and proceedings in the Supreme Court and every High Court are in English until Parliament provides otherwise — though Article 348(2) lets a Governor, with the President's prior consent, authorise Hindi or the State's official language in that State's High Court, which is why Hindi has been permitted in the Patna High Court since 1972, as in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Judgments, decrees and orders stay in English even there. Article 211 is a rule of comity running from the legislature towards the judiciary. Article 212 is the same rule running back the other way. Add Article 194 on privileges and the design is complete: each organ polices its own house, and neither audits the other's housekeeping.

This is a four-Article recall test disguised as a single-statement question, and every wrong option was manufactured by tampering with exactly one word of a real provision. The method that beats it is mechanical: name the Article each option is quoting, then hunt for the tampered word. Option (b) adds a right the Article expressly withholds; option (c) deletes a prohibition; option (d) deletes a "not". Only option (a) survives the comparison. The single discriminator worth memorising is the direction in which Articles 211 and 212 point, because they are the pair candidates swap most often: 211 protects the judge from the House, 212 protects the House from the court. Hold that one sentence and options (c) and (d) both die in a second, leaving a two-way contest between (a) and (b) that Article 177's closing words settle. Then deal honestly with the residual doubt about (a), which is the word "only": Article 210's proviso does let a member address the House in his mother tongue with the presiding officer's leave, so the option overstates the Article slightly. That is not a reason to abandon it, because the alternatives do not merely overstate their Articles — they contradict them. The Bihar setting makes the rule concrete. Bihar's official language is Hindi, with Urdu as the State's second official language, so the Vidhan Sabha transacts business in either of those or in English; and this very booklet was printed in both, which is Article 210's logic in miniature.

• Article 210(1): notwithstanding Part XVII but subject to Article 348, business in a State Legislature is transacted in the official language or languages of the State, or in Hindi, or in English — with a proviso letting the Speaker or Chairman permit a member who cannot adequately express himself to address the House in his mother tongue.
• Article 210(2): unless the State Legislature by law provides otherwise, the words "or in English" were to drop out fifteen years after the Constitution commenced; special provisos substitute twenty-five years for Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura, and forty years for Arunachal Pradesh, Goa and Mizoram.
• Article 177: every Minister and the Advocate-General may speak in and take part in the proceedings of the House or Houses and of any committee he is named to, "but shall not, by virtue of this article, be entitled to vote"; Article 165 has the Governor appoint him from persons qualified to be a High Court judge.
• Article 211 bars any discussion in a State Legislature on the conduct of a Supreme Court or High Court judge in the discharge of his duties, and unlike Article 121 for Parliament it carries no proviso for a removal motion — removal lies under Article 124(4) read with Article 217(1)(b), a Parliamentary power.
• Article 212(1) bars any challenge to proceedings for alleged irregularity of procedure and 212(2) puts the presiding officer's procedural powers beyond the courts; the Union mirrors are Articles 118, 120, 121 and 122, with Article 88 as the Attorney-General's counterpart to Article 177.

• Swapping Article 211 and Article 212 — one keeps judges out of legislative debate, the other keeps courts out of legislative procedure
• Believing the Advocate-General can vote because he sits in the House and speaks in it; a Minister on the same bench votes as a member, not by virtue of Article 177
• Missing a deleted 'not' in an option — the commonest way an examiner turns a true Article into a false statement
• Assuming Article 211 has the same removal-motion proviso as Article 121; it does not, because a State Legislature has no part in removing a judge

BPSC likes the flat 'What is true about…' frame with four Articles collapsed into four options — one quoted straight, three inverted by a single word — so one provision learned in its exact negative form kills a whole option and the item becomes a two-way choice. UPSC almost never quotes the Article number: it asks the same content functionally, through a two-statement item on whether a law officer may vote or whether a House may debate a judge, and it hides the test inside a wider stem on parliamentary privilege. Learn the text for BPSC and the function for UPSC; the underlying provision is identical.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under which Article is the Advocate-General of a State entitled to speak in, and take part in the proceedings of, the State Legislature without a right to vote?

  • (a)Article 165
  • (b)Article 177
  • (c)Article 194
  • (d)Article 212

  Answer(b) Article 177 — Article 165 deals with his appointment by the Governor, Article 194 with the privileges of the House and its members, and Article 212 with the bar on questioning proceedings for irregularity.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which Article bars a State Legislature from discussing the conduct of a Judge of the Supreme Court or of a High Court in the discharge of his duties?

  • (a)Article 210
  • (b)Article 211
  • (c)Article 212
  • (d)Article 217

  Answer(b) Article 211 — Article 210 fixes the language of business, Article 212 protects the House's proceedings from challenge for irregularity of procedure, and Article 217 governs the appointment and conditions of office of a High Court judge.