CDS (II) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 54 of 120

Correct — D, It refers to the Government of India, Parliament of India, Governments and Legislatures of each State, and all local or other authorities within the territory of India. Article 12 is a definition clause, and it is deliberately the widest of the four options. It says that in Part III, unless the context otherwise requires, the State includes the Government and Parliament of India, the Government and the Legislature of each of the States, and all local or other authorities within the territory of India or under the control of the Government of India. The breadth is the point: Fundamental Rights are guaranteed against the State, so if the definition were confined to the Union executive a citizen could not enforce Article 14 against a municipality, a State legislature or a statutory corporation. The last limb, all local or other authorities, is where the definition has grown most — the courts have read other authorities to cover statutory bodies and, through the instrumentality-or-agency test, government companies and societies that are financially, functionally and administratively dominated by the government.

• (a)It refers only to the Government of India. — Far too narrow. Restricting the State to the Government of India would leave every State government, every legislature and every municipality outside Part III, which would make most Fundamental Rights litigation impossible.
• (b)It refers only to the Government of India and the Parliament of India. — Still too narrow. It adds Parliament but leaves out the States and the local bodies, and the great majority of executive action a citizen encounters is State or local.
• (c)It refers only to the Government of India, Parliament of India, and Governments and Legislatures of each State. — The closest of the three wrong options, and the one that catches candidates who remember the four constitutional organs but forget the fifth limb. Dropping local or other authorities would exclude municipalities, panchayats, universities, electricity boards and statutory corporations.

Article 12 exists only to give the word State a working meaning in Part III. It is an inclusive definition, so the list is a floor rather than a ceiling, which is why judicial interpretation has been able to extend it. The judiciary's position is the standing complication: when courts make rules or act on their administrative side they are treated as the State, while a judicial decision itself is generally not challenged as State action violating Fundamental Rights.

The way to read a definition item is to ask what the definition is for. Because Part III creates rights against public power, anything exercising public power has to be inside it, and the correct option will therefore be the most inclusive one that the text supports. That heuristic disposes of the three narrow options immediately. The line of cases is worth knowing as a chain — Rajasthan State Electricity Board brought statutory bodies in, Sukhdev Singh and R. D. Shetty developed the agency reasoning, Ajay Hasia gave the six-factor test, and Pradeep Kumar Biswas in 2002 restated it as a test of deep and pervasive State control rather than a mechanical checklist.

• Article 12 defines the State for the purposes of Part III as the Government and Parliament of India, the Government and Legislature of each State, and all local or other authorities within the territory of India or under the control of the Government of India.
• The definition is inclusive, so courts have been able to extend it beyond the listed bodies.
• Local authorities cover municipalities, panchayats, district boards and improvement trusts.
• Other authorities has been read to include statutory corporations and bodies under deep and pervasive government control, following the instrumentality-or-agency test.
• Article 13 completes the scheme by making any law inconsistent with Fundamental Rights void to the extent of the inconsistency.

• Reading the definition as exhaustive; the word includes makes it a floor.
• Forgetting the local-authorities limb, which is what separates the right answer from the nearest wrong one.
• Assuming every body receiving government funds is the State; the test is deep and pervasive control, not funding alone.

As a definition item on the meaning of the State, or as statements listing bodies and asking which fall within Article 12.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The definition of ‘the State’ in Article 12 of the Constitution of India applies

  • (a)throughout the Constitution
  • (b)to Part III, unless the context otherwise requires
  • (c)only to Article 14
  • (d)to Parts III and IV alike

  Answer(b) to Part III, unless the context otherwise requires — Article 36 separately applies the same meaning within Part IV.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following is the test applied by the courts to decide whether a body is an ‘other authority’ under Article 12?

  • (a)Whether it earns a profit
  • (b)Whether it is deeply and pervasively controlled by the government
  • (c)Whether it employs more than a thousand persons
  • (d)Whether it was created before 1950

  Answer(b) Whether it is deeply and pervasively controlled by the government — the instrumentality-or-agency test developed through Ajay Hasia and restated in Pradeep Kumar Biswas.