In relation to the fundamental duties enshrined in the Constitution of India, which one of the following is NOT correct?

Q: What is the answer to CAPF 2020 Paper I Q55?

D. Correct — D, They may not be used for determining constitutionality of laws. Fundamental duties cannot be enforced against a citizen, but courts do use them when judging a law. Where a statute is challenged under Article 14 or Article 19 and the court finds that it gives effect to a fundamental duty, that finding weighs in favour of holding the restriction reasonable and saving the law. The Supreme Court has also treated the duties as an aid to interpreting ambiguous provisions and has held them to be as important as the fundamental rights in shaping the constitutional scheme. So the blanket statement in option (d) is the one that does not hold; the other three are accurate.

(a)The fundamental duties were not originally a part of the Constitution
(b)To safeguard public property and abjure violence are fundamental duties
(c)They are not enforceable through writs
(d)They may not be used for determining constitutionality of laws

Answer

Why

Correct — D, They may not be used for determining constitutionality of laws. Fundamental duties cannot be enforced against a citizen, but courts do use them when judging a law. Where a statute is challenged under Article 14 or Article 19 and the court finds that it gives effect to a fundamental duty, that finding weighs in favour of holding the restriction reasonable and saving the law. The Supreme Court has also treated the duties as an aid to interpreting ambiguous provisions and has held them to be as important as the fundamental rights in shaping the constitutional scheme. So the blanket statement in option (d) is the one that does not hold; the other three are accurate.

Why the others are wrong

(a)The fundamental duties were not originally a part of the Constitution — Correct as stated. Part IV-A and Article 51A were inserted by the Forty-second Amendment in 1976 on the recommendation of the Swaran Singh Committee, and an eleventh duty was added by the Eighty-sixth Amendment in 2002.
(b)To safeguard public property and abjure violence are fundamental duties — Correct as stated. Article 51A(i) reads, in terms, as a duty to safeguard public property and to abjure violence.
(c)They are not enforceable through writs — Correct as stated. The duties carry no legal sanction of their own, and a writ under Article 32 or Article 226 will not lie to compel a citizen to perform one.

Concept

Part IV-A holds a single article, 51A, listing eleven duties of every citizen. They were modelled on the Soviet constitution and, like the directive principles, they are non-justiciable — no court will order a citizen to develop scientific temper. What they are not is decorative. Parliament may legislate to give them effect, and where it does, the duty becomes enforceable through that legislation rather than through Article 51A itself.

The trap in this item is a natural but wrong inference. Non-enforceable is easily read as legally inert, so a candidate who has learnt that fundamental duties cannot be enforced by writ will accept option (d) as another way of saying the same thing. They are not the same thing. Being unable to enforce a duty against a person is one proposition; being unable to look at the duty when testing a statute is quite another, and the courts have done the second repeatedly. Prevention of Insults to National Honour, the wildlife and forest statutes and the environment legislation are all read alongside the corresponding duties. The list still stands at eleven, the eleventh being the parental duty to provide education to a child between six and fourteen years, inserted alongside the right to education.

Key facts

Fundamental duties were inserted by the Forty-second Amendment in 1976 on the Swaran Singh Committee's recommendation.
There are eleven duties, all in Article 51A, which is the whole of Part IV-A.
They are non-justiciable and no writ lies to enforce them against a citizen.
A court may treat a law that gives effect to a fundamental duty as imposing a reasonable restriction under Article 14 or Article 19.
The eleventh duty, on providing education to a child of six to fourteen years, was added by the Eighty-sixth Amendment in 2002.

What non-enforceable does and does not mean

No writ lies to make a citizen perform a duty→True. The duties carry no sanction of their own and Article 32 will not be used to compel one.

Parliament may legislate to give a duty effect→True, and where it has, the obligation is enforced through that statute.

A court may not look at the duties when testing a law→False. A law that advances a fundamental duty is more readily held to be a reasonable restriction.

The wrong option converts a limit on enforcing duties against citizens into a limit on using them in judicial review, which does not follow.

Study next

The eleven fundamental duties in Article 51A, learnt as a listThe Swaran Singh Committee and what the Forty-second Amendment carried besides the dutiesDirective principles and their relationship with fundamental rightsThe Verma Committee on operationalising fundamental dutiesThe Eighty-sixth Amendment, Article 21A and the Right to Education Act

Common traps

Sliding from not enforceable against a citizen to not usable in judicial review.
Assuming voting is a fundamental duty; it is not on the Article 51A list.
Forgetting that the count is eleven, not ten, after the Eighty-sixth Amendment.

The NOT form here works by offering three true statements and one that overstates a true idea. Look for the option that pushes a genuine limitation further than the law does.

Related PYQs

UPSC_2017_GS1_Q362017Open & attempt →

Which of the following statements is/are true of the Fundamental Duties of an Indian citizen? 1. A legislative process has been provided to enforce these duties. 2. They are correlative to legal duties. Select the correct answer using the code given below:

(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer(d) Neither 1 nor 2

The enforceability question asked directly. It settles the boundary this item turns on — the Constitution provides no machinery to enforce the duties against a citizen, which is a different matter from whether a court may use them.

UPSC_2011_GS1_Q442011Open & attempt →

Under the Constitution of India, which one of the following is not a fundamental duty?

(a) To vote in public elections
(b) To develop the scientific temper
(c) To safeguard public property
(d) To abide by the Constitution and respect its ideals

Answer(a) To vote in public elections

The list itself, tested by exclusion. Safeguarding public property appears there as it does in option (b) of this question, which is a useful confirmation that the wording is drawn straight from Article 51A.

CAPF_GAI_2022_Q1082022Open & attempt →

The Swaran Singh Committee recommended the insertion of which one of the following provisions into the Constitution of India?

(a) Doctrine of Pleasure
(b) Fundamental Duties
(c) Nomination of Anglo-Indian Members to the Lok Sabha
(d) Impeachment of the President of India

Answer(b) Fundamental Duties

The origin of Part IV-A, which is what makes option (a) of this question true. The committee reported in 1976 and its recommendation was carried by the Forty-second Amendment the same year.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
The fundamental duties were added to the Constitution of India by which amendment?
- (a)The Forty-second Amendment, 1976
- (b)The Forty-fourth Amendment, 1978
- (c)The Fifty-second Amendment, 1985
- (d)The Eighty-sixth Amendment, 2002
Answer(a) The Forty-second Amendment, 1976 — the Eighty-sixth Amendment later added the eleventh duty.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following is NOT listed as a fundamental duty under Article 51A?
- (a)To develop the scientific temper
- (b)To protect and improve the natural environment
- (c)To pay taxes honestly
- (d)To value and preserve the composite culture of India
Answer(c) To pay taxes honestly — it was recommended by the Swaran Singh Committee but was not included in Article 51A.