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

Correct — C, Only religious and linguistic minorities find mention in Article 30 of the Constitution of India in reference to the right to establish educational institutions of their choice. Article 30(1) reads that all minorities, whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. Those are the only two bases the Article names. It does not extend the right to minorities defined by race, caste, ethnicity or economic condition, and the Constitution nowhere defines the word minority at all — the working definitions are statutory, under the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992, and judicial, in cases such as T. M. A. Pai Foundation. Article 29 protects any section of citizens with a distinct language, script or culture, and Article 350B provides for a Special Officer for Linguistic Minorities, so the constitutional scheme as a whole recognises minorities on religion and language and on nothing else. The three remaining options each overstate a provision, and each can be knocked down by a single clause.

• (a)Under Article 21A of the Constitution of India, the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children up to the age of eleven years. — The age is wrong. Article 21A, inserted by the Eighty-sixth Amendment in 2002, obliges the State to provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years, in such manner as the State may by law determine. Eleven appears nowhere in it, and the Article has both a floor and a ceiling rather than a simple ceiling.
• (b)Every religious denomination has got absolute power under Article 26 of the Constitution of India to manage its own affairs in matters of religion. — The word 'absolute' is the whole error. Article 26 opens with the words 'subject to public order, morality and health', which is precisely a limitation. No fundamental right in Part III is absolute, and the freedom of religion articles carry their restrictions in their opening lines rather than in a separate clause.
• (d)Parliament cannot empower, even by law, any court other than the Supreme Court of India the power to issue writs within local limits of its jurisdiction. — The Constitution says the opposite twice over. Article 32(3) expressly allows Parliament by law to empower any other court to exercise, within the local limits of its jurisdiction, all or any of the powers exercisable by the Supreme Court under Article 32(2). And in any case Article 226 already gives every High Court the power to issue writs, on a wider ground than the Supreme Court's, because it extends beyond fundamental rights to 'any other purpose'.

This item ranges across three different corners of Part III. Article 21A is the right to education, brought in by the Eighty-sixth Amendment of 2002 and given effect by the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. Articles 25 to 28 are the freedom of religion group, with Article 25 protecting individual conscience and Article 26 the collective rights of a religious denomination — both expressly subject to public order, morality and health. Articles 29 and 30 are the cultural and educational rights: Article 29 protects any section of citizens with its own language, script or culture, and Article 30 gives minorities based on religion or language the right to establish and administer their own educational institutions. Article 32 is the right to constitutional remedies, which Ambedkar called the heart and soul of the Constitution.

A which-one-is-correct item with four different Articles in it is really four small true-or-false questions, and the efficient method is to look for the one word in each option that could be checked. Here the giveaways are conveniently blunt: 'eleven years' in option (a), 'absolute' in option (b), and 'cannot, even by law' in option (d). Superlatives and absolute negatives are almost always the false half of a constitutional statement, because the Constitution is written in provisos. Option (c) is the only one that does not overreach; it says 'only religious and linguistic minorities', which is exactly what Article 30(1) says. The deeper point behind it is worth carrying separately, because the examiners come back to it: the Constitution recognises minorities on two grounds and defines the term on none, which is why the statutory notification of 1993 and the eleven-judge decision in T. M. A. Pai Foundation carry so much of the weight in this area.

• Article 30(1) — all minorities, whether based on religion or language, have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. No other basis is named.
• The Constitution nowhere defines 'minority'; the working definition comes from the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992 and from judicial decisions such as T. M. A. Pai Foundation.
• Article 21A, inserted by the Eighty-sixth Amendment, 2002, covers children of the age of six to fourteen years.
• Article 26 is expressly subject to public order, morality and health; no fundamental right in Part III is absolute.
• Article 32(3) permits Parliament by law to empower any other court to exercise the Supreme Court's writ powers within the local limits of its jurisdiction; Article 226 already gives High Courts writ jurisdiction for fundamental rights and for any other purpose.
• Article 350B provides for a Special Officer for Linguistic Minorities, inserted by the Seventh Amendment, 1956.

• Reading Article 21A as covering all children up to fourteen; it begins at six.
• Treating any fundamental right as absolute — the freedom of religion articles carry their limits in their opening words.
• Assuming only the Supreme Court can issue writs; High Courts do so under Article 226, and Parliament may empower other courts under Article 32(3).

As a which-one-is-correct item spanning several Articles, or as a statements question specifically on minority educational rights.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Article 21A of the Constitution of India obliges the State to provide free and compulsory education to all children of which age group?

  • (a)Six to fourteen years
  • (b)Five to eleven years
  • (c)Six to eighteen years
  • (d)Three to fourteen years

  Answer(a) Six to fourteen years — inserted by the Eighty-sixth Amendment, 2002 and implemented through the Right to Education Act, 2009.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under which clause may Parliament by law empower a court other than the Supreme Court to exercise writ powers within the local limits of its jurisdiction?

  • (a)Article 32(3)
  • (b)Article 226(2)
  • (c)Article 136
  • (d)Article 143

  Answer(a) Article 32(3) — which is why the claim that Parliament cannot do so, even by law, is wrong.