Enforcement Officer / Accounts Officer (EO/AO) 2017 recruitment test. Transcribed from the Commission's own booklet (series A, GRS-A-TNS); answer as per the official UPSC final answer key. This question is in Part B. Answer last reviewed 24 August 2026.

Which one of the following statements regarding the Constituent Assembly of India is not correct?

(a)The Constituent Assembly was composed of members who had been elected indirectly by the Members of the Provincial Legislative Assembly.
(b)The Constituent Assembly held its first sitting on 9th December, 1946.
(c)The seats in each province were distributed among the three main communities—Muslim, Sikh and General, in proportion to their respective populations.
(d)The method of selection in the case of representatives of Indian States was to be determined by the Governor-General of India.

Answer

Why

Correct — D, (d) The method of selection in the case of representatives of Indian States was to be determined by the Governor-General of India. The ask is negative, with not in bold italic, and this is the statement that misdescribes the scheme. The Constituent Assembly was constituted under the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946, and the Plan dealt with the princely states separately from British India for the obvious reason that the Crown’s relationship with them was one of paramountcy rather than of government. It could not simply prescribe how their representatives would be chosen, so it provided that the method of selection in the case of the representatives of the Indian States would be determined by consultation — negotiation between the States and the Assembly, conducted through negotiating committees — and in the event the States’ representatives came into the Assembly by nomination by the rulers and their governments as those negotiations proceeded. What the Plan did not do, at any point, was hand the choice to the Governor-General. The three other statements describe the arrangements accurately: the provincial members were elected indirectly, by the members of the provincial legislative assemblies; the Assembly held its first sitting on 9 December 1946; and the seats of each province were divided among Muslims, Sikhs and the General category in proportion to their populations. Of a total of 389 seats, 296 were assigned to British India and 93 to the princely states, on a rough ratio of one seat to a million people.

Why the others are wrong

(a)The Constituent Assembly was composed of members who had been elected indirectly by the Members of the Provincial Legislative Assembly. — Correct, and therefore not the answer. The Assembly was an indirectly elected body: the members of each provincial legislative assembly, voting in their communal groups, elected the representatives of their province by proportional representation with a single transferable vote. That is why the Assembly is described as indirectly elected and on a restricted franchise, since the provincial assemblies themselves had been elected in 1946 on the limited franchise of the Government of India Act, 1935. The point is often raised in discussions of the Assembly’s representative character, and the answer usually given is that it was as representative a body as the constitutional arrangements of the day allowed.
(b)The Constituent Assembly held its first sitting on 9th December, 1946. — Correct. The Constituent Assembly met for the first time on 9 December 1946, in the Constitution Hall at New Delhi, with the Muslim League absent because it was pressing its demand for a separate state. Dr Sachchidananda Sinha, as the oldest member, took the chair for that opening sitting, and Dr Rajendra Prasad was elected President of the Assembly two days later. Jawaharlal Nehru moved the Objectives Resolution on 13 December 1946, and it was adopted in January 1947; that resolution became the basis of the Preamble.
(c)The seats in each province were distributed among the three main communities—Muslim, Sikh and General, in proportion to their respective populations. — Correct as printed. The Cabinet Mission Plan allotted each British Indian province a number of seats roughly proportionate to its population and then divided those seats among three communities — Muslim, Sikh and General, the last covering everyone who was neither Muslim nor Sikh — again in proportion to their numbers in the province. Each group elected its own representatives. It is a communal method of composition, inherited from the electoral arrangements of the 1930s, and the Assembly that it produced went on to abolish separate electorates in the Constitution it wrote.

Concept

The Constituent Assembly was created by the Cabinet Mission Plan of May 1946, not by an election in the modern sense, and its composition follows from that origin. Total strength 389: 296 seats for British India, of which 292 came from the eleven governors’ provinces and four from the chief commissioners’ provinces, and 93 for the princely states. Provincial seats were allotted in proportion to population, divided among Muslim, Sikh and General categories, and filled by indirect election through the provincial assemblies. The states’ seats were to be filled by a method settled through consultation with the states themselves. After partition the Assembly was reconstituted for the territory of India and its strength fell to 299. It first met on 9 December 1946, elected Rajendra Prasad as its President, adopted the Objectives Resolution, appointed the Drafting Committee under B. R. Ambedkar in August 1947, and adopted the Constitution on 26 November 1949, which came into force on 26 January 1950. It also served as the provisional Parliament from August 1947 until the first general election.

The Constituent Assembly is one of the most heavily examined topics in the polity syllabus, and questions about it fall into two families: dates and offices on the one hand, composition and method on the other. This item is from the second family and is set as four statements, three of which any well-prepared candidate will recognise. The discrimination therefore falls entirely on the princely-states clause, which is the part of the scheme least often revised. That is a general feature of statement questions on this paper: the true statements are the famous ones, and the false statement is planted in the corner of the topic that summaries skip. Reading the Cabinet Mission Plan’s provisions once, in their own words, is what protects against it.

Key facts

The Constituent Assembly was constituted under the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946; the method of selection for the representatives of the Indian States was to be determined by consultation.
Total strength was 389 seats — 296 for British India and 93 for the princely states — allotted roughly in the ratio of one seat to a million people.
Provincial seats were divided among Muslim, Sikh and General communities in proportion to population, and filled by indirect election through the provincial legislative assemblies by proportional representation with a single transferable vote.
The Assembly held its first sitting on 9 December 1946, with Sachchidananda Sinha as temporary chairman; the Muslim League stayed away.
Rajendra Prasad was elected President of the Assembly on 11 December 1946, and Nehru moved the Objectives Resolution on 13 December 1946.
After partition the Assembly was reconstituted and its strength became 299.
The Drafting Committee was appointed in August 1947 under the chairmanship of B. R. Ambedkar; the Constitution was adopted on 26 November 1949 and came into force on 26 January 1950.

The true statements are the famous ones; the false one sits in the corner

(d) The Governor-General — the false claim→The Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946 dealt with the princely states separately from British India, because the Crown’s relationship with them was one of paramountcy rather than of government. It could not simply prescribe how their representatives would be chosen, so it provided that the method of selection for the representatives of the Indian States would be determined by consultation.

How the States’ members actually came in→By negotiation between the States and the Assembly, conducted through negotiating committees, with representatives nominated by the rulers and their governments as those negotiations proceeded. At no point did the Plan hand the choice to the Governor-General.

(a) Indirect election — correct→The members of each provincial legislative assembly, voting in their communal groups, elected the representatives of their province by proportional representation with a single transferable vote. Those provincial assemblies had themselves been elected in 1946 on the limited franchise of the Government of India Act, 1935.

(b) 9 December 1946 — correct→The Assembly met for the first time that day in the Constitution Hall at New Delhi, the Muslim League absent because it was pressing its demand for a separate state. Sachchidananda Sinha, as the oldest member, took the chair; Rajendra Prasad was elected President two days later.

(c) Three communities in proportion — correct→Each British Indian province had a number of seats roughly proportionate to its population, and those seats were divided among Muslim, Sikh and General — the last covering everyone who was neither Muslim nor Sikh — again in proportion to their numbers. Each group elected its own representatives.

The arithmetic of the Assembly→389 seats in all, 296 for British India and 93 for the princely states, on a rough ratio of one seat to a million people. After partition the Assembly was reconstituted for the territory of India and its strength became 299.

Study next

The Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946: the three-tier scheme, the grouping of provinces and the Constituent Assembly it createdThe working of the Constituent Assembly — its committees, the Objectives Resolution and the timeline of the draftingThe integration of the princely states and the instruments of accessionCriticisms of the Assembly’s representative character and the answers usually given to themThe Assembly’s second role as the provisional Parliament of India until 1952

Common traps

Assuming that anything left undecided in 1946 must have been left to the Governor-General. The states were dealt with by consultation.
Reading past the emphasised not in a question where three statements are familiar and true.
Confusing the total strength of 389 before partition with the 299 members of the reconstituted Assembly.
Treating the Assembly as directly elected. Its members were chosen by the provincial legislatures, themselves elected on a limited franchise.

The Constituent Assembly appears in nearly every recruitment paper in this family, usually through one of a small set of facts — the date of the first sitting, the presiding officers, the Objectives Resolution, the composition under the Cabinet Mission Plan, the date of adoption. The negative-statement form used here is the one that separates candidates, because it requires the composition to be known precisely rather than approximately. A candidate who can recite 389, 296, 93 and 299, and who knows how each block of seats was filled, will answer any version of this question.

Related PYQs

EPFO_EOAO_2017_Q38Open & attempt →

Forced labour or beggar is a violation of which one of the following Articles of the Constitution of India?

(a) Article 16
(b) Article 17
(c) Article 19
(d) Article 23

Answer(d) Article 23

The Article 23 item immediately before this one; the Assembly described here is the body that framed that Article.

EPFO_EOAO_2017_Q40Open & attempt →

Which one of the following is not a constitutional body?

(a) The Election Commission of India
(b) The Finance Commission
(c) The Official Languages Commission
(d) The National Commission for Women

Answer(d) The National Commission for Women

The constitutional-body item that follows, which tests the difference between what the Constitution itself creates and what Parliament creates by statute.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Under the Cabinet Mission Plan, how many of the Constituent Assembly’s 389 seats were allotted to the princely states?
- (a)70
- (b)93
- (c)292
- (d)296
Answer(b) 93
practice — not a real PYQ
Who presided over the first sitting of the Constituent Assembly on 9 December 1946 as its temporary chairman?
- (a)Dr Rajendra Prasad
- (b)Dr Sachchidananda Sinha
- (c)Dr B. R. Ambedkar
- (d)H. C. Mookerjee
Answer(b) Dr Sachchidananda Sinha