CDS (I) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 108 of 120

Correct — A, Meghalaya. Article 243M is the exemption clause of Part IX, and it names three States outright — Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram. It also keeps Part IX out of the Scheduled Areas and the tribal areas referred to in Article 244, out of the hill areas of Manipur for which District Councils exist, and out of the district-Panchayat provisions in the hill areas of Darjeeling district in West Bengal, while exempting Arunachal Pradesh from the reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes under Article 243D. The reason in each case is that a different and older system of local self-government is already in place. In Meghalaya it is the Autonomous District Councils of the Sixth Schedule — the Khasi Hills, Jaintia Hills and Garo Hills councils — which perform functions a Panchayat would otherwise perform.

• (b)Tripura — Tripura does have a Sixth Schedule body, the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council, but the State is not named in Article 243M and Part IX applies to it. The exemption in Article 243M for tribal areas operates area by area, not State by State, except for the three States named.
• (c)Assam — Assam also has Sixth Schedule councils — Bodoland, Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao — yet it is not one of the three States kept out of Part IX. Panchayats function in the rest of Assam.
• (d)Goa — A State with no Sixth Schedule areas at all and a long-standing village-level tradition of its own in the comunidades, but nothing that takes it outside Part IX. Panchayats there are constituted under Part IX like anywhere else.

The Sixth Schedule provides for Autonomous District Councils in the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, with their own legislative, executive, judicial and financial powers over land, forests, village administration, inheritance and social custom. Part IX, added in 1992, provides a uniform Panchayat structure for the rest of rural India. Article 243M is the joint where the two systems meet, and it resolves the overlap by keeping Part IX out where the older arrangement already governs.

The trap is that all four options except Goa have some tribal-area machinery, so the reasoning has to come from the text of Article 243M rather than from a general sense of which States are tribal. Fix the three named States as a set — Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram — and the item is decided. Note the direction of the exemption too: it is Meghalaya that is out entirely, while Assam and Tripura are in, with Part IX applying outside their Sixth Schedule areas. Parliament may extend Part IX to the Scheduled Areas and tribal areas by law with exceptions and modifications, and that is exactly what it did for the Scheduled Areas through the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996.

• Article 243M keeps Part IX out of Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram.
• It also excludes the Scheduled Areas and the tribal areas referred to in Article 244, and the hill areas of Manipur for which District Councils exist.
• The district-Panchayat provisions do not apply to the hill areas of Darjeeling district in West Bengal.
• Arunachal Pradesh is exempt from Article 243D so far as reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes is concerned.
• Meghalaya's local self-government runs through Sixth Schedule Autonomous District Councils for the Khasi Hills, Jaintia Hills and Garo Hills.

• Choosing a State because it has Sixth Schedule councils; Assam and Tripura have them and are still inside Part IX.
• Forgetting that the exemption also runs area by area — Scheduled Areas and tribal areas are out even in States where Part IX applies.
• Assuming the exemption is permanent; Parliament may extend Part IX to those areas by law, as it did through the 1996 Act.

As an odd-one-out on the States outside Part IX, or as a statements item on Article 243M and the Sixth Schedule.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India provides for Autonomous District Councils in the tribal areas of

  • (a)Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram
  • (b)Nagaland, Manipur, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh
  • (c)Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh
  • (d)Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and West Bengal

  Answer(a) Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram — the four States whose tribal areas are administered under the Sixth Schedule.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act was enacted in

  • (a)1992
  • (b)1993
  • (c)1996
  • (d)2006

  Answer(c) 1996 — it extended Part IX to the Fifth Schedule areas with modifications, giving wide powers to the Gram Sabha.