CDS (I) 2022 General Knowledge · Question 43 of 120

Correct — D, Health Emergency. Part XVIII of the Constitution is headed Emergency Provisions and it contains exactly three kinds. Article 352 allows a Proclamation of Emergency where the security of India or any part of it is threatened by war, external aggression or armed rebellion — the National Emergency of option (a). Article 356 deals with the failure of the constitutional machinery in a State, the provision popularly called President's Rule and offered as option (b). Article 360 provides for a financial emergency where the financial stability or credit of India is threatened, which is option (c). There is no fourth head. A public health crisis, however severe, is handled under ordinary legislation such as the Epidemic Diseases Act and the Disaster Management Act, not by a constitutional proclamation.

• (a)National Emergency — This is Article 352 and it is very much in the Constitution. Its grounds are war, external aggression and armed rebellion, the last substituted for internal disturbance by the Forty-fourth Amendment.
• (b)State Emergency in terms of Proclamation of President's Rule in a State — This is Article 356, headed Provisions in case of failure of constitutional machinery in States. It is the most frequently used of the three and is listed in Part XVIII alongside the other two.
• (c)Financial Emergency — This is Article 360. It has never been proclaimed in India, which is why candidates sometimes doubt it exists, but it is squarely in the text and allows directions on the salaries of public servants and on the reservation of State Money Bills for the President.

Part XVIII of the Constitution, Articles 352 to 360, sets out the emergency provisions. A National Emergency under Article 352 rests on war, external aggression or armed rebellion; President's Rule under Article 356 follows a breakdown of constitutional government in a State; a financial emergency under Article 360 rests on a threat to the financial stability or credit of India. The Forty-fourth Amendment of 1978 tightened the first of these after the experience of 1975, replacing internal disturbance with armed rebellion and requiring the written advice of the Cabinet.

The safest way through this item is to count. A candidate who can name three and only three heads in Part XVIII will spot the intruder immediately, whichever way the paper dresses it up. The temptation to pick option (c) is real, because a financial emergency has never actually been declared in India and therefore feels hypothetical; but existence in the text is what the question asks about, not use. The COVID-19 pandemic is the reason a health emergency sounds plausible, and it is a useful case in point: India's response ran on the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and the colonial-era Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, precisely because the Constitution offers no health-emergency power to invoke.

• Part XVIII of the Constitution is headed Emergency Provisions and runs from Article 352 to Article 360.
• Article 352 permits a Proclamation of Emergency on grounds of war, external aggression or armed rebellion.
• Article 356 covers failure of the constitutional machinery in a State, commonly called President's Rule.
• Article 360 provides for a financial emergency and has never been invoked in India.
• The Forty-fourth Amendment, 1978, substituted armed rebellion for internal disturbance in Article 352.

• Assuming a provision that has never been used is not in the Constitution.
• Adding a fourth head that sounds plausible — health, environmental or cyber emergency — none of which exists in Part XVIII.
• Confusing internal disturbance, the pre-1978 ground, with armed rebellion, the present one.

As an odd-one-out among the emergency types, as an article-to-subject match, or as a statements item on the grounds or duration of a particular proclamation.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A financial emergency in India is provided for under which Article of the Constitution?

  • (a)Article 352
  • (b)Article 356
  • (c)Article 360
  • (d)Article 365

  Answer(c) Article 360 — Article 352 is the National Emergency, Article 356 is President's Rule in a State.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The ground of internal disturbance in Article 352 was replaced by armed rebellion through which amendment?

  • (a)The Forty-second Amendment
  • (b)The Forty-fourth Amendment
  • (c)The Fifty-second Amendment
  • (d)The Sixty-first Amendment

  Answer(b) The Forty-fourth Amendment of 1978, enacted in response to the experience of the 1975 Emergency.