Which of the following statements is/are correct as per the Constitution of India? 1. The Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act has added the Right to Education to the chapter of Directive Principles of State Policy. 2. Right to Work and Right to Education are both, Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy. Select the answer using the code given below:

Correct — D, Neither 1 nor 2. Take statement 2 first, because it is the cleaner of the two. The Right to Education really is both things at once: it is a Fundamental Right under Article 21A and it also appears among the Directive Principles in Articles 41 and 45. The Right to Work does not have that double life. It is named in Article 41, which directs the State, within the limits of its economic capacity, to make effective provision for securing the right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement. Article 41 sits in Part IV, is not enforceable by any court, and has no counterpart anywhere in Part III. Statement 1 is the subtler failure. The Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2002 did three things: it inserted Article 21A among the Fundamental Rights, making free and compulsory education for children between six and fourteen a right enforceable against the State; it substituted Article 45 in the Directive Principles so that the directive now speaks of early childhood care and education for children below the age of six; and it added Article 51A(k) as a Fundamental Duty on parents and guardians. So the amendment did touch the Directive Principles chapter — but what it added there is early childhood care, and the Right to Education itself went into Part III.

• (a)1 only — The likely landing place for a candidate who notices that the 86th Amendment did amend the Directive Principles chapter. It did — but by rewriting Article 45 to speak of early childhood care below six. The Right to Education it created is Article 21A, a Fundamental Right.
• (b)2 only — Half of statement 2 is true and half is not. The Right to Education is indeed both a Fundamental Right and a Directive Principle; the Right to Work is only ever a Directive Principle, under Article 41.
• (c)Both 1 and 2 — Requires both to hold, and neither does. Education entered Part III, not Part IV, and the Right to Work never entered Part III at all.

Education was in the Constitution from the beginning, but on the unenforceable side of it. Article 45 as originally enacted directed the State to provide free and compulsory education for all children until they completed the age of fourteen, within ten years, and Article 41 named a right to education alongside a right to work. Courts then moved ahead of the text: in Unni Krishnan in 1993 the Supreme Court held that a right to education for children up to fourteen flowed from the right to life in Article 21, read with the Directive Principles. The 86th Amendment of 2002 wrote that judicial position into the Constitution as Article 21A, and Parliament gave it machinery through the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. Article 21A and that Act were brought into force together on 1 April 2010.

The design of this item is to reward knowing which Part a provision lives in, and to punish knowing only that a provision exists. Two habits help. First, keep a short list of the rights that appear in both Parts — education is the standard example, since Article 21A is enforceable while Articles 41 and 45 are not. Second, be suspicious of any statement that pairs the right to work with a fundamental right, because the right to work is one of the best-known things the Constitution deliberately did not make enforceable; the guarantee that exists in practice comes from a statute, the rural employment guarantee law, not from Part III. There is a genuine tension in statement 1 worth acknowledging rather than glossing over: the 86th Amendment did operate on the Directive Principles chapter. The statement fails on what it says was added there, not on whether the chapter was touched.

• The Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2002 inserted Article 21A in Part III, substituted Article 45 in Part IV and added Article 51A(k) among the Fundamental Duties.
• Article 21A makes free and compulsory education for children aged six to fourteen a Fundamental Right; the substituted Article 45 covers early childhood care and education below six.
• The Right to Work appears only in Article 41, a Directive Principle, and is not enforceable by any court.
• Article 21A and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 were brought into force on 1 April 2010.
• In Unni Krishnan (1993) the Supreme Court had already read a right to education for children up to fourteen into Article 21.

• Reading 'the 86th Amendment amended the Directive Principles' as 'it added the Right to Education there'. It substituted Article 45 with early childhood care.
• Treating the right to work as a Fundamental Right because a statutory employment guarantee exists. The statute is not Part III.
• Assuming Article 21A applies to all children. It covers the age group of six to fourteen; below six, the provision is a directive, not a right.

As a Part III against Part IV sorting item like this one, as a straight question on which amendment inserted Article 21A, or by asking what the 86th Amendment added to the Fundamental Duties.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The right to work is dealt with by which one of the following Articles of the Constitution of India?

  • (a)Article 19
  • (b)Article 21A
  • (c)Article 41
  • (d)Article 43A

  Answer(c) Article 41 — a Directive Principle directing the State, within the limits of its economic capacity, to secure the right to work, to education and to public assistance in certain cases.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  After the Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2002, Article 45 of the Constitution provides for

  • (a)free and compulsory education for all children up to fourteen years
  • (b)early childhood care and education for children below the age of six years
  • (c)free legal aid to the poor
  • (d)a uniform civil code

  Answer(b) early childhood care and education for children below the age of six years — the six-to-fourteen group moved into Part III as Article 21A.