MPPSC 2025 Prelims Paper-I · Question 74 of 100

Correct — D, the Sapru Committee, chaired by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, whose constitutional proposals were published in 1945. The committee (the Conciliation Committee set up by the Non-Party Conference) was asked to find a constitutional settlement for India, and its report went well beyond the communal question into the architecture of a future constitution — including a judiciary insulated from politics, with judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts appointed by the head of the State in consultation with the Chief Justice rather than at executive discretion. Accounts of the making of the Constitution credit this 1945 report as the source of the appointment scheme the Constituent Assembly later wrote into Articles 124 and 217. Sapru himself was one of the era's foremost constitutional lawyers — Law Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council, a leader of the Liberals, and a participant in the Round Table Conferences — which is why his committee's proposals carried weight with the framers.

• (a)Harendra Kumar — No committee of this name is credited with the 1945 constitutional proposals on judicial appointments. The 1945 report the question points to is universally known as the Sapru Committee Report, after its chairman.
• (b)Sen (Usha Nath Sen) — There is no 'Sen Committee (1945)' behind the judicial-appointment provisions of the Constitution. The option works only as a plausible-sounding surname of the period; the report that shaped Articles 124 and 217 is the Sapru report.
• (c)Varadachari (S. Varadachari) — Not the 1945 committee the question means. S. Varadachariar is a real and relevant figure — he chaired the Constituent Assembly's Ad hoc Committee on the Supreme Court in 1947 — but the provisions on appointing judges are traced to the Sapru Committee of 1945.

Several pre-independence reports fed into the Constitution, and exams test 'which report gave us which provision'. The Sapru Committee (1945) belongs to the final phase of that pre-independence constitutional debate: it was an Indian, non-official attempt at a settlement, and it is remembered in constitutional history for its treatment of an independent judiciary and of minority safeguards. The Constituent Assembly's own Ad hoc Committee on the Supreme Court and, later, the Drafting Committee, worked with the same idea — appointments made by the President in consultation with the judiciary, with fixed tenure, security of salary and a difficult removal procedure, so that judges would not depend on the government of the day.

The trap in this question is that all four options are formatted identically — a surname plus an expansion in brackets — so nothing looks obviously wrong. The only reliable filter is the year. '1945' is a strong hook: it is the year of the Sapru Committee's published constitutional proposals, sitting between the Cripps Mission (1942) and the Cabinet Mission (1946) in the sequence of pre-independence constitutional milestones.

• The Sapru Committee, chaired by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, published its constitutional proposals in 1945.
• It was the Conciliation Committee set up by the Non-Party Conference to suggest a constitutional settlement for India, and it dealt with both the communal question and the shape of the future constitution.
• Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru was a leading Allahabad lawyer, Law Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council (1920–23), a leader of the Liberals, and a participant in the Round Table Conferences.
• In the Constitution as adopted, Article 124 governs the appointment of Supreme Court judges and Article 217 that of High Court judges — in both, the President appoints after consultation with the judiciary.
• Judicial independence in the Constitution is built from several devices together: consultative appointment, security of tenure, a difficult removal process, and salaries charged on the Consolidated Fund.

• Attaching the wrong year to the report — 1945 is Sapru, 1946 is the Cabinet Mission
• Assuming the Constitution's judicial-appointment scheme came from the Government of India Act, 1935 alone
• Reading 'consultation with the Chief Justice' in Article 124 as the collegium — the collegium is a later judicial interpretation, not the text

MPPSC asks this as a fill-in-the-blank naming the committee and its year. UPSC rarely names the Sapru Committee directly; it tests Sapru as a personality of the national movement, or tests the appointment provisions themselves through statement questions on judicial independence and the collegium.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru is associated with which of the following organisations?

  • (a)Swaraj Party
  • (b)All India Liberal Federation
  • (c)Forward Bloc
  • (d)Ghadar Party

  Answer(b) All India Liberal Federation — Sapru was among the foremost leaders of the Liberals and took part in all three Round Table Conferences.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under Article 124 of the Constitution, judges of the Supreme Court of India are appointed by:

  • (a)the Chief Justice of India
  • (b)the President of India
  • (c)Parliament, by a resolution
  • (d)the Union Council of Ministers

  Answer(b) the President of India — after consultation with such judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts as are considered necessary; consultation with the Chief Justice of India is compulsory for appointing other judges.