CDS (I) 2022 General Knowledge · Question 77 of 120

Correct — C, The total number of Ministers in the Council of Ministers cannot exceed ten percent of the total number of members of the House of People. The figure in the Constitution is fifteen per cent, not ten. Article 75(1A), inserted by the Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act, 2003, says that the total number of Ministers, including the Prime Minister, in the Council of Ministers shall not exceed fifteen per cent of the total number of members of the House of the People. The same amendment put an identical ceiling on State Councils of Ministers in Article 164(1A), with a floor of twelve there, and it tightened the anti-defection law by removing the exemption for a split. A ceiling of ten per cent would put the Union Council at about fifty-four members on the present strength of the House; the real figure allows about eighty-one. Everything else in the option is accurately phrased, which is why the single number is the whole question.

• (a)All executive actions of the Government of India are taken in the name of the President of India. — Correct. Article 77(1) requires all executive action of the Government of India to be expressed to be taken in the name of the President, which is why orders and notifications carry that formula whatever the level at which the decision was actually made.
• (b)The President of India appoints a person as Attorney General of India provided she/he is qualified to be a Judge of the Supreme Court or a High Court. — This is the option that comes closest to being a second answer. Article 76(1) requires the Attorney-General to be a person qualified to be appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court, and says nothing about a High Court, so the words or a High Court in the printed option are loose. The statement is nevertheless right about the substance — appointment by the President, on a judicial qualification — while option (c) states a number the Constitution flatly contradicts, and the key marks (c).
• (d)The President of India is bound to act as per the advice tendered by the Council of Ministers. — Correct. Article 74(1) as it stands after the Forty-second and Forty-fourth Amendments obliges the President to act in accordance with the advice tendered by the Council of Ministers, subject only to a single power to require the Council to reconsider.

The Ninety-first Amendment of 2003 was a response to two related problems of coalition politics: enormous ministries created to buy support, and defections engineered by splitting a party. It capped the Union Council of Ministers at fifteen per cent of the Lok Sabha's strength and a State Council at fifteen per cent of the Assembly's, with a minimum of twelve; it barred a member disqualified for defection from holding ministerial office for the rest of his term; and it deleted the provision of the Tenth Schedule that had protected a split by one-third of a legislature party.

A number is the easiest thing for an examiner to alter and the hardest thing to argue about, so numbers in the Constitution repay exact memory: fifteen per cent for a ministry, twelve as the State floor, one-tenth of the House as quorum under Article 100, one-third of a legislature party under the old anti-defection proviso. Here the item is honest about everything except that one figure. It is worth recording a real tension in this question, though. Option (b) adds the words or a High Court to the Attorney-General's qualification, and Article 76(1) mentions only the Supreme Court, so on a strict reading that option is imprecise as well. The official key marks (c), and (c) is the option that contradicts an express number rather than merely overstating a qualification, so that is what this card teaches; a candidate who hesitated between (b) and (c) was reading carefully rather than carelessly.

• Article 75(1A): the total number of Ministers, including the Prime Minister, shall not exceed fifteen per cent of the total number of members of the House of the People.
• Article 164(1A) applies the same fifteen per cent ceiling to a State, with a minimum of twelve Ministers.
• Both ceilings were inserted by the Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act, 2003.
• Article 76(1): the President appoints as Attorney-General a person qualified to be appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court.
• Article 77(1): all executive action of the Government of India is expressed to be taken in the name of the President.

• Remembering the ministry ceiling as ten per cent; it is fifteen.
• Forgetting the floor of twelve Ministers that applies to a State but not to the Union.
• Extending the Attorney-General's qualification to High Court judges; Article 76(1) names only the Supreme Court.

As a not-correct statement item where one number has been altered, or directly as which amendment capped the size of the Council of Ministers.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The ceiling on the size of the Council of Ministers was introduced into the Constitution of India by

  • (a)the Fifty-second Amendment, 1985
  • (b)the Ninety-first Amendment, 2003
  • (c)the Ninety-seventh Amendment, 2011
  • (d)the Forty-fourth Amendment, 1978

  Answer(b) the Ninety-first Amendment, 2003 — it inserted Articles 75(1A) and 164(1A) and also tightened the anti-defection law.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In a State, the total number of Ministers including the Chief Minister shall not be less than

  • (a)six
  • (b)ten
  • (c)twelve
  • (d)fifteen

  Answer(c) twelve — Article 164(1A) sets a floor of twelve alongside the fifteen per cent ceiling.