MPSC 2023 Prelims Paper-I · Question 75 of 100

This question was CANCELLED by the Commission. It carries no correct answer in the official final key, and this card accordingly nominates none — no option is identified here, and no attempt is made to reconstruct the withdrawn answer. What follows instead is the topic the question was built on, the President of the Zilla Parishad, taught on its own terms. The Zilla Parishad sits at the top of the three-tier panchayati raj structure. Below it are the Panchayat Samiti at the block or intermediate level and the Gram Panchayat at the village level, an arrangement recommended for the country by the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee in 1957 and given constitutional status by the Seventy-third Amendment Act of 1992, which came into force on 24 April 1993 and inserted Part IX, Articles 243 to 243-O, together with the Eleventh Schedule listing twenty-nine subjects that may be devolved on the panchayats. In Maharashtra the tier is governed by the Maharashtra Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis Act, 1961, under which each district has a Zilla Parishad with a President and a Vice-President. The manner in which the President comes to office is fixed by the Constitution itself: Article 243C(5) provides that the Chairperson of a Panchayat at the intermediate or district level shall be elected by, and from amongst, the elected members of that Panchayat, so the President of a Zilla Parishad is not directly elected by the voters of the district and is not appointed by the State Government, but is chosen by the elected councillors from their own number. Article 243D requires the offices of Chairpersons in the panchayats to be reserved for the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and women in the manner the State Legislature provides, which in practice means the office rotates among reserved categories from term to term. The President is the elected political head of the Zilla Parishad: he or she presides over its meetings, and the body transacts its business through subject committees covering areas such as finance, works, agriculture, education, health and social welfare. Standing beside the President is the Chief Executive Officer, an officer of the Indian Administrative Service, who heads the administration of the Zilla Parishad and through whom the resolutions of the elected body are carried out — a division between an elected head and an appointed executive that runs through Indian local government at every level. Article 243E fixes a term of five years for every Panchayat from the date appointed for its first meeting, unless it is sooner dissolved, and requires elections to be completed before the expiry of that term, while Article 243K places the conduct of panchayat elections with the State Election Commission and Article 243-I requires the Governor to constitute a State Finance Commission every five years to review the finances of the panchayats. Those provisions together are the framework within which the office of the President of a Zilla Parishad exists.

Local self-government in rural India rests on Part IX of the Constitution, inserted by the Seventy-third Amendment Act of 1992 and in force from 24 April 1993, which converted panchayati raj from a matter of state policy into a constitutional obligation. Before it, the three-tier design had been recommended by the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee in 1957 and taken up by states at their own pace and on their own terms, so that bodies could be superseded indefinitely and elections postponed at will. Part IX closed those escapes. Article 243B requires panchayats to be constituted at the village, intermediate and district levels in every state, the intermediate tier being optional for states with a population below twenty lakh. Article 243C leaves the composition to state law but requires all seats to be filled by direct election from territorial constituencies, and provides that the Chairperson at the intermediate and district levels shall be elected by and from among the elected members. Article 243D reserves seats for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in proportion to their population and reserves not less than one-third of all seats, and of the offices of Chairperson, for women. Article 243E gives every Panchayat a term of five years and requires that elections be held before that term expires, and that a body dissolved early be reconstituted within six months. Article 243F sets the disqualifications, Article 243G empowers the state to devolve the twenty-nine subjects of the Eleventh Schedule, Article 243H deals with the power to impose taxes and with the funds of the panchayats, Article 243-I requires a State Finance Commission every five years, and Article 243K vests the superintendence and conduct of all panchayat elections in a State Election Commission whose Commissioner is appointed by the Governor. In Maharashtra this framework operates through the Maharashtra Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis Act, 1961, which governs the district and block tiers, alongside the Bombay Village Panchayats Act for the village tier.

This question was withdrawn by the Commission and no answer to it exists, so the useful thing a candidate can take from it is the subject rather than the item. Rural local government is among the densest scoring areas in MPSC papers, for two reasons. It is constitutionally codified, so a large part of it can be learnt exactly — which Article does what, which term is five years, which reservation is one-third, how many subjects are in the Eleventh Schedule. And it has a state-specific layer, since the Constitution leaves composition, the term of the Chairperson, the mode of removal and the extent of devolution to state law, and the Commission examines the Maharashtra statute alongside the constitutional scheme. That division is the one worth internalising: what Part IX settles is uniform across India and can be relied upon anywhere, while what the state Act settles varies and has to be learnt for Maharashtra specifically. The topic also carries a large quantity of numerical detail — fractions for reservation and for procedural majorities, periods of years and months, numbers of subjects and of committees — which is exactly the material examiners alter to manufacture a false statement, so figures in this area repay being learnt precisely rather than approximately. Note that this question labels its statements A to D in the English column and अ to ड in the Marathi column, and that its closing line asks for the incorrect statements, a negative direction printed in ordinary type with nothing to mark it out.

• The Zilla Parishad is the district-level tier of the three-tier panchayati raj system, above the Panchayat Samiti at the block level and the Gram Panchayat at the village level; in Maharashtra the upper two tiers are governed by the Maharashtra Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis Act, 1961.
• Article 243C(5) of the Constitution provides that the Chairperson of a Panchayat at the intermediate or district level shall be elected by, and from amongst, the elected members of that Panchayat, so the President of a Zilla Parishad is chosen by the elected councillors and not directly by the electorate.
• Article 243D requires the offices of Chairpersons in the panchayats to be reserved for the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and women in the manner the State Legislature provides, and requires not less than one-third of all seats and of Chairperson offices to be reserved for women.
• The Chief Executive Officer of a Zilla Parishad is an officer of the Indian Administrative Service and heads its administration, while the President is the elected head who presides over the body — the standard division in Indian local government between an elected head and an appointed executive.
• The Seventy-third Amendment Act of 1992 came into force on 24 April 1993 and inserted Part IX and the Eleventh Schedule, which lists twenty-nine subjects that may be devolved on the panchayats; Article 243E fixes a five-year term for every Panchayat and Article 243K vests panchayat elections in the State Election Commission.

• Assuming the President of a Zilla Parishad is directly elected by the voters of the district, when Article 243C(5) requires the district-level Chairperson to be elected by and from among the elected members
• Confusing what the Constitution settles uniformly with what each State Act settles for itself, since composition, the Chairperson's term and the mode of removal are left to state law
• Mixing up the elected President with the Chief Executive Officer, who is an appointed civil servant heading the administration rather than an elected representative
• Treating the five-year term under Article 243E as the term of the Chairperson, when it is the term of the Panchayat as a body
• Learning the fractions and periods of this topic approximately, when reservation proportions, terms and procedural majorities are precisely the details examiners alter to build a false statement

Panchayati raj is one of the most heavily examined blocks in MPSC's polity section, and it is asked in three layers. The constitutional layer supplies Article-anchored questions: which Article provides for the State Election Commission, what proportion of seats is reserved for women, how many subjects the Eleventh Schedule contains, what happens when a panchayat is dissolved before its term. The historical layer supplies committee questions on the Balwant Rai Mehta and Ashok Mehta reports and on the sequence of adoption across states. The state layer supplies questions on the Maharashtra Act — the officers of the Zilla Parishad, its committees, the powers of the Chief Executive Officer and the procedures the state statute prescribes. Questions drawn from the state layer are where candidates most often lose ground, because textbook preparation tends to stop at Part IX; and because the state layer is statutory detail, it is also where the Commission most often builds a false statement by altering a figure inside an otherwise accurate description.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under Article 243C(5) of the Constitution, the Chairperson of a Panchayat at the district level is chosen in which of the following ways ?

  • (a)Directly elected by the voters of the district
  • (b)Elected by, and from amongst, the elected members of that Panchayat
  • (c)Nominated by the State Government
  • (d)Appointed by the State Election Commission

  Answer(b) Elected by, and from amongst, the elected members of that Panchayat — the Constitution prescribes this method for the Chairperson at both the intermediate and the district levels, while for the village level it leaves the manner of election to the State Legislature. The distinction matters because it makes the office of President of a Zilla Parishad an indirect one, held by a serving councillor chosen by fellow councillors rather than by the district's electorate at large.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Eleventh Schedule of the Constitution, inserted by the Seventy-third Amendment Act, lists how many subjects that may be devolved upon the panchayats ?

  • (a)18 subjects
  • (b)22 subjects
  • (c)29 subjects
  • (d)31 subjects

  Answer(c) 29 subjects — the Eleventh Schedule was added by the Seventy-third Amendment Act of 1992 and is linked to Article 243G, which empowers the State Legislature to endow panchayats with such powers and authority as may be necessary to function as institutions of self-government in relation to those subjects. The corresponding list for urban local bodies is the Twelfth Schedule, added by the Seventy-fourth Amendment, which contains eighteen subjects.