Consider the following statements with reference to the Constitution of India : 1. The Parliament can make laws on matters enumerated in the Union List and/or the Concurrent List. 2. The Parliament can make laws on any matter not enumerated in the Concurrent List or the State List. Select the answer using the codes given below :
- (a)1 only
- (b)2 only
- (c)Both 1 and 2
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2
Answer
Why
Correct — C, (c) Both 1 and 2. The two statements between them reproduce Parliament's two sources of legislative competence, and both are in the Constitution in almost these words.
Statement 1 — CORRECT. Article 246(1) gives Parliament exclusive power to make laws with respect to any of the matters in List I, the Union List. Article 246(2) gives Parliament — and, subject to Article 246(1), the Legislature of a State — power to make laws with respect to any matter in List III, the Concurrent List. So Parliament may legislate on a Union List entry, on a Concurrent List entry, or on both in one enactment: 'and/or' is accurate rather than loose.
Statement 2 — CORRECT, and it is Article 248 nearly verbatim: 'Parliament has exclusive power to make any law with respect to any matter not enumerated in the Concurrent List or State List.' This is the residuary power, reinforced by entry 97 of the Union List, which covers any other matter not enumerated in List II or List III including any tax not mentioned in either. The Constitution places residuary power with the Union, unlike the Australian or American arrangement of leaving it with the units.
Read together, the two statements say that Parliament can legislate on the Union List, on the Concurrent List, and on everything not on any list — which is exactly the position. Nothing in either statement claims Parliament may legislate on the State List, so neither is overstated; the special situations in which it may do so (Article 249 on a Rajya Sabha resolution, Article 250 during a Proclamation of Emergency, Article 252 at the request of two or more States, Article 253 to implement an international agreement, and Article 356) are outside what is asserted here.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)1 only — Accepts the ordinary distribution of powers and rejects the residuary power. It is chosen by candidates who read statement 2 as a claim that Parliament can legislate on anything at all and recoil from it. The statement is narrower than that: it speaks only of matters that appear on NEITHER the Concurrent List NOR the State List, and for those Article 248 gives Parliament exclusive power.
- (b)2 only — Rejects statement 1, presumably over the 'and/or'. But the two Lists are not exclusive alternatives for Parliament — Article 246 gives it exclusive competence over the Union List and competence over the Concurrent List, so a law resting on entries in both is perfectly possible. Nothing in statement 1 requires the two to be used separately.
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2 — This would leave Parliament with no source of legislative power at all, which cannot be right. A candidate reaches it by over-reading both statements — treating 'and/or' as an error in the first and residuary power as an overstatement in the second — and it is a useful warning that scepticism applied evenly to every statement is as unreliable as accepting every statement.
Concept
Article 246 read with the Seventh Schedule divides legislative power three ways. List I, the Union List, belongs exclusively to Parliament. List II, the State List, belongs to the State Legislatures — subject to the constitutional exceptions. List III, the Concurrent List, is open to both, with Article 254 resolving conflict in favour of the Union law unless a State law reserved for and receiving the President's assent prevails within that State. Article 248 adds the residuary head: whatever is not enumerated in the Concurrent List or the State List is exclusively Parliament's, which is how subjects the framers could not have listed in 1950 are legislated on today. The courts read the entries broadly and use the doctrine of pith and substance to decide which List a law truly falls in, so incidental encroachment does not by itself invalidate an Act.
Federal distribution of powers is standing material for a Union recruitment paper, and this pair of statements is the cleanest possible test of it: one statement on the ordinary distribution, one on the residuary. Both are close paraphrases of the constitutional text, which is why the item rewards a candidate who has read the Articles rather than a summary. The Both/Neither ladder used here converts two independent judgements into a single mark, so the safer method is to settle each statement against the Article before looking at the options.
The Both/Neither ladder is at its most dangerous when both statements are true, because the ladder gives no clue: a candidate who has settled one statement still has to settle the other, and the temptation is to assume that an examiner would not offer two correct statements. That assumption is worth abandoning. On this paper the ladder appears repeatedly in the polity block, and its four rungs are used evenly. Settle each statement against the Article it comes from, write 'true' or 'false' beside it, and only then look at the options; a judgement made after seeing the options is a judgement contaminated by them.
Key facts
- Article 246(1): Parliament has exclusive power to make laws with respect to matters in List I, the Union List.
- Article 246(2): Parliament and, subject to clause (1), State Legislatures may make laws on matters in List III, the Concurrent List.
- Article 246(3): a State Legislature has exclusive power over matters in List II, the State List, subject to clauses (1) and (2).
- Article 248: Parliament has exclusive power to make any law with respect to any matter not enumerated in the Concurrent List or State List, including the power to impose a tax not mentioned in either.
- Entry 97 of the Union List is the residuary entry corresponding to Article 248.
- Article 254 governs repugnancy between a Union and a State law on a Concurrent List matter.
- Parliament may legislate on a State List matter in defined situations — Articles 249, 250, 252, 253 and during President's rule under Article 356.
- The service tax was levied under the residuary entry before the Goods and Services Tax was introduced, which is the standard illustration of Article 248 in practice.
Study next
Common traps
- Reading 'and/or' as an error; Parliament may legislate on the Union List, the Concurrent List, or both at once.
- Assuming residuary power lies with the States, as it does in some other federations.
- Confusing the residuary power with the emergency and Article 249 powers over State subjects, which are temporary and conditional.
- Forgetting entry 97 of the Union List when asked where residuary taxation comes from.
The distribution of legislative powers recurs in these papers as a two-statement item, as a 'which List does this subject belong to' question, or as a Match List of Articles against subjects. All three are answered from Articles 246 to 254 plus a working knowledge of the more examined entries in each List.
Related PYQs
EPFO_EOAO_2017_Q83Which one of the following comes under the ‘State List’ under the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India?
- (a) Relief of the disabled and unemployable
- (b) Regulation of labour and safety in mines
- (c) Regulation and control of manufacture, supply and distribution of salt
- (d) Social security and social insurance
Answer(a) Relief of the disabled and unemployable
The same Seventh Schedule tested from the other end — which of four subjects sits in the State List, which is the judgement Article 246 requires before any of these rules can be applied.
Practice
- practice — not a real PYQ
Under the Constitution of India, the power to make laws with respect to a matter not enumerated in the Concurrent List or the State List vests in which one among the following ?
- (a)Exclusively in Parliament
- (b)Exclusively in the State Legislatures
- (c)In Parliament and the State Legislatures concurrently
- (d)In the President by order
Answer(a) Exclusively in Parliament
- practice — not a real PYQ
Where a law made by a State Legislature on a matter in the Concurrent List is repugnant to a law made by Parliament on the same matter, which one among the following states the position correctly ?
- (a)The State law prevails in all cases
- (b)The Union law prevails, unless the State law was reserved for and received the assent of the President
- (c)Both laws are void
- (d)The matter is decided by the Governor
Answer(b) The Union law prevails, unless the State law was reserved for and received the assent of the President