CDS (I) 2023 General Knowledge · Question 74 of 120

Correct — B, The President of India. Paragraph 4(1) of the Fifth Schedule reads: 'There shall be established in each State having Scheduled Areas therein and, if the President so directs, also in any State having Scheduled Tribes but not Scheduled Areas therein, a Tribes Advisory Council consisting of not more than twenty members...' Read that sentence in two halves. Where a State has Scheduled Areas, a Tribes Advisory Council is compulsory — 'there shall be established'. Where a State has Scheduled Tribes but no Scheduled Areas, the Council comes into being only 'if the President so directs'. The discretion in the second half is the President's alone, and that is precisely what the question asks about. The Council must have not more than twenty members, of whom as nearly as may be three-fourths are to be representatives of the Scheduled Tribes in the State Legislative Assembly.

• (a)The Governor of the concerned State — The Governor has heavy responsibilities under the Fifth Schedule — referring matters to the Council under para 4(2), making rules for its size, membership and procedure under para 4(3), directing that a law shall not apply to a Scheduled Area under para 5, and reporting to the President under para 3 — but the Governor cannot create a Council where there are no Scheduled Areas. This is the option most candidates pick, because the Governor is the Schedule's working authority.
• (c)The Inter-State Council — The Inter-State Council is a different creature altogether — Article 263, set up by a Presidential order in 1990 to investigate and discuss subjects of common interest between the Union and the States. It has no function under the Fifth Schedule.
• (d)The Parliament of India — Parliament can amend the Fifth Schedule itself by ordinary law under paragraph 7, and that amendment is deemed not to be a constitutional amendment for Article 368 — but the Schedule as it stands gives the setting-up direction to the President, not to Parliament.

The Fifth Schedule, read with Article 244(1), governs the administration and control of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes in every State except Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, which the Sixth Schedule handles instead. Its machinery is supervisory rather than devolutionary. The President declares which areas are Scheduled Areas (para 6); the Governor reports annually to the President and the Union may give directions on administration (para 3); the Governor may modify or bar the application of laws and may make regulations, including regulations on the transfer of land by tribals (para 5); and a Tribes Advisory Council advises on tribal welfare (para 4).

The item is built on the difference between 'shall' and 'if the President so directs' inside a single sentence. Candidates who remember only that 'the Governor runs the Fifth Schedule' walk straight into option (a). The safeguard reading also helps: the whole Schedule works by placing a State's tribal administration under Union oversight, so the one power that reaches into a State which has no Scheduled Areas at all naturally belongs to the President, acting for the Union, rather than to that State's own Governor. Two terms of art are worth fixing while you are here. Scheduled Areas belong to the Fifth Schedule; Tribal Areas belong to the Sixth. They are not synonyms, and the Constitution itself keeps the two regimes apart by providing in the Fifth Schedule that the expression 'State' there does not include Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura or Mizoram.

• Fifth Schedule, para 4(1) — a Tribes Advisory Council is mandatory in every State having Scheduled Areas, and may be set up in a State having Scheduled Tribes but no Scheduled Areas if the President so directs.
• The Council has not more than twenty members, of whom as nearly as may be three-fourths are representatives of the Scheduled Tribes in the State Legislative Assembly.
• If the Assembly does not have enough Scheduled Tribe representatives to fill those seats, the remainder are filled by other members of those tribes.
• The Governor makes the rules for the Council's numbers, appointment, chairman, officers and procedure, and refers matters to it; the President declares Scheduled Areas under para 6.
• The Fifth Schedule does not apply to Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, which are covered by the Sixth Schedule.

• Answering 'Governor' from a general memory that the Governor runs the Fifth Schedule; the setting-up direction in a State without Scheduled Areas is the President's.
• Using 'Scheduled Areas' and 'Tribal Areas' as if they meant the same thing.
• Forgetting that the Fifth Schedule expressly excludes Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.

Usually as a which-authority item on a single paragraph of the Fifth Schedule, or as a statements item comparing Fifth and Sixth Schedule machinery.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution of India, the maximum strength of a Tribes Advisory Council is

  • (a)ten members
  • (b)fifteen members
  • (c)twenty members
  • (d)thirty members

  Answer(c) twenty members — para 4(1) fixes 'not more than twenty members', of whom as nearly as may be three-fourths must be Scheduled Tribe members of the State Legislative Assembly.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The power to declare an area to be a Scheduled Area under the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution of India rests with

  • (a)the Governor of the State
  • (b)the President of India
  • (c)the Parliament of India
  • (d)the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes

  Answer(b) the President of India — paragraph 6 of the Fifth Schedule lets the President declare, alter and rescind Scheduled Areas by order.