CDS (I) 2022 General Knowledge · Question 63 of 120

Correct — D, 1, 2 and 4 only. Article 19(1) as it now stands guarantees six freedoms: speech and expression under (a), assembling peaceably and without arms under (b), forming associations or unions or co-operative societies under (c), moving freely throughout the territory of India under (d), residing and settling in any part of the territory under (e), and practising any profession or carrying on any occupation, trade or business under (g). Items 1, 2 and 4 of the question are (a), (b) and (d) almost word for word. Item 3, acquiring and disposing of property, was sub-clause (f) of the 1950 text and is simply no longer there: the Constitution (Forty-fourth Amendment) Act, 1978, most of which took effect on 30 April 1979, omitted Article 19(1)(f), repealed Article 31, and moved the protection to a new Article 300A in Part XII, which says only that no person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law. Property became a constitutional and legal right rather than a fundamental one, and the gap between (e) and (g) in the printed Article is the visible scar. The words as it stands amended in the stem are the examiner warning you that the pre-1979 text is the wrong answer.

• (a)1 and 2 only — True as far as it goes, but it drops item 4, and moving freely throughout the territory of India is Article 19(1)(d) — very much in force.
• (b)1, 2, 3 and 4 — This is Article 19(1) as it read before 1979. Including the property right is exactly the error the phrase as it stands amended was put in to catch.
• (c)4 only — Discards the two best-known freedoms in the Constitution. Speech and expression is 19(1)(a) and peaceful assembly without arms is 19(1)(b); both are in the list.

Article 19 is the freedoms article of Part III. Clause (1) lists the freedoms; clauses (2) to (6) attach the grounds on which the State may impose reasonable restrictions on each of them — the sovereignty and integrity of India, security of the State, public order, decency, morality, contempt of court, defamation and incitement to an offence, among others. The Article has been altered more than once: the First Amendment of 1951 widened the grounds of restriction in clause (2), the Forty-fourth Amendment of 1978 removed the property freedom in (f), and the Ninety-seventh Amendment of 2011 added the words or co-operative societies to (c).

The whole item turns on one deletion. A candidate who memorised seven freedoms is reciting a text that ceased to exist in 1979. Two anchors make it hard to forget: the surviving sub-clauses run (a), (b), (c), (d), (e) and then jump straight to (g), and the successor provision sits far away in Part XII as Article 300A. The Forty-fourth Amendment was the Janata government's undoing of the Emergency-era settlement, and downgrading property was its own contribution rather than a reversal of the Forty-second. As matters stand today Article 300A still governs, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly treated it as a constitutional right requiring a valid law, a fair procedure and, in acquisition cases, compensation.

• Article 19(1) today lists six freedoms — (a) speech and expression, (b) assembly, (c) associations or unions or co-operative societies, (d) movement, (e) residence, (g) profession — and has no sub-clause (f).
• The Constitution (Forty-fourth Amendment) Act, 1978 omitted Article 19(1)(f) and repealed Article 31; most of it came into force on 30 April 1979.
• Article 300A reads: no person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law. It sits in Part XII, not Part III.
• Because Article 300A speaks of person rather than citizen, the property protection reaches non-citizens too, while the Article 19 freedoms are available to citizens only.
• The words or co-operative societies were inserted into Article 19(1)(c) by the Ninety-seventh Amendment, 2011.

• Reciting the pre-1979 list of seven freedoms.
• Placing Article 300A in Part III; it sits in Part XII and cannot be enforced under Article 32 as a fundamental right.
• Forgetting that the right to form co-operative societies entered 19(1)(c) only in 2011.

As a list check like this one, as a question on the present position of the right to property, or as which amendment removed it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The right to property ceased to be a Fundamental Right by which one of the following amendments to the Constitution of India?

  • (a)The Forty-second Amendment
  • (b)The Forty-fourth Amendment
  • (c)The Fifty-second Amendment
  • (d)The Eighty-sixth Amendment

  Answer(b) The Forty-fourth Amendment — the 1978 Act omitted Article 19(1)(f), repealed Article 31 and inserted Article 300A.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Article 300A of the Constitution of India deals with

  • (a)the right to equality before the law
  • (b)the right to property
  • (c)the right to education
  • (d)the right to constitutional remedies

  Answer(b) the right to property — no person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law.