MPSC 2024 Prelims Paper-I · Question 82 of 100

Correct — option (2), the 69th Constitutional Amendment Act. The Constitution (Sixty-ninth Amendment) Act, 1991 renamed the Union Territory of Delhi as the National Capital Territory of Delhi and gave it a form of government no other Union Territory then had. It did so by inserting two new articles. Article 239AA created for Delhi a Legislative Assembly of seventy seats filled by direct election, with power to make laws for the whole or any part of the National Capital Territory on matters in the State List and the Concurrent List — except public order, police and land, which were kept with the Union — and a Council of Ministers headed by a Chief Minister to aid and advise the Lieutenant Governor. Article 239AB provided the machinery for the President to suspend that arrangement if the administration of the territory cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of Article 239AA, which is Delhi's equivalent of President's rule. The amendment was brought into force on 1 February 1992 and was accompanied by an ordinary law, the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991, which works out the detail. The crucial point of principle, and the one MPSC is testing, is that the amendment did not make Delhi a state: it remains a Union Territory, with a special status and a legislature of limited competence, which is why the Union Government retains control of the police and of land in the capital.

• (1)63rd Constitutional Amendment Act — The Constitution (Sixty-third Amendment) Act, 1989 has nothing to do with Delhi. It repealed the special provisions that the Fifty-ninth Amendment of 1988 had made for Punjab, which had allowed a proclamation of emergency in that state on the ground of internal disturbance and had extended the permissible duration of President's rule there. It is a Punjab-specific rollback, and it is offered here only because its number sits close to 69 and a candidate who half-remembers 'sixty-something' can be pushed onto it.
• (3)91st Constitutional Amendment Act — The Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act, 2003 tightened the anti-defection law and capped the size of ministries. It limited the Council of Ministers in the Union and in every state to fifteen per cent of the strength of the House, with a floor of twelve ministers in a state, disqualified a defector from holding a ministerial or remunerative political office for the rest of the term, and deleted the provision of the Tenth Schedule that had allowed a split of one-third of a legislature party to escape disqualification. It concerns the composition of governments generally, not the constitutional status of Delhi.
• (4)93rd Constitutional Amendment Act — The Constitution (Ninety-third Amendment) Act, 2005 inserted clause (5) into Article 15, enabling the state to make special provision for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes and of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in admission to educational institutions, including private educational institutions whether aided or unaided by the state, but excluding minority institutions covered by Article 30(1). It is the constitutional basis of the reservation regime in higher education upheld in Ashoka Kumar Thakur (2008) — a question of educational reservation, entirely unrelated to the government of the capital.

Delhi occupies a category of its own in the Indian federal structure and the question turns on knowing why. Under Article 239 a Union Territory is administered by the President acting through an administrator; some Union Territories were given legislatures by ordinary law under Article 239A. Delhi's arrangement is written into the Constitution itself. Following the recommendations of the Balakrishnan Committee, the Sixty-ninth Amendment of 1991 inserted Articles 239AA and 239AB, styled the territory the National Capital Territory of Delhi, and gave it an elected Assembly and a Council of Ministers while reserving public order, police and land to the Union. Two names are constantly confused and it is worth fixing the difference: the National Capital TERRITORY is this constitutional entity, the Union Territory of Delhi under Article 239AA. The National Capital REGION is something else entirely — a statutory planning region covering Delhi together with districts of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, constituted under the National Capital Region Planning Board Act, 1985, and having no constitutional status at all. A related but distinct amendment is the Seventieth, of 1992, which allowed the elected members of the Delhi and Puducherry assemblies to take part in the election of the President.

MPSC asks amendment questions by number, and the only defence is to hold a short list of the amendments that carry a name and a consequence rather than trying to memorise the whole series. The ones that recur are the 1st (Ninth Schedule), 42nd (Preamble and the wider 1976 package), 44th (right to property removed from the Fundamental Rights), 52nd and 91st (anti-defection), 61st (voting age lowered to eighteen), 69th (Delhi), 73rd and 74th (panchayats and municipalities), 86th (right to education), 101st (GST) and 106th (women's reservation). Notice also how this question is built: the three wrong options are all real amendments with real content, so a candidate cannot eliminate by spotting a fabricated number. The reliable method is to recall the substance attached to each number and match it to the stem, and to be alert that adjacent numbers are chosen deliberately as decoys.

• The Constitution (Sixty-ninth Amendment) Act, 1991 designated the Union Territory of Delhi as the National Capital Territory of Delhi and inserted Articles 239AA and 239AB; it came into force on 1 February 1992.
• Article 239AA created a directly elected Legislative Assembly of 70 seats and a Council of Ministers for Delhi, with legislative competence over the State and Concurrent Lists except public order, police and land.
• Article 239AB is the provision under which the President may suspend the operation of Article 239AA — the Delhi equivalent of President's rule.
• Delhi remains a Union Territory; the amendment gave it a special status, not statehood. The Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991 is the companion legislation.
• The National Capital Region is a separate, statutory planning region under the National Capital Region Planning Board Act, 1985, covering Delhi and adjoining districts of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
• The Constitution (Seventieth Amendment) Act, 1992 allowed members of the Delhi and Puducherry legislative assemblies to vote in presidential elections.

• Confusing the National Capital Territory with the National Capital Region — one is constitutional, the other a statutory planning area
• Believing the 69th Amendment made Delhi a state; it remains a Union Territory with a legislature of limited competence
• Mixing up the 69th with the 70th Amendment, which dealt with presidential-election voting rights for Delhi and Puducherry MLAs
• Guessing at an amendment number from its neighbours — here the 63rd, 91st and 93rd are all genuine amendments with unrelated subject matter

Amendment-number questions appear in almost every MPSC polity section, usually as a single-line stem with four plausible numbers, and occasionally as a matching item pairing amendments with their subjects. Delhi's status is asked in two further ways as well — through Article 239AA directly, and through the powers reserved to the Union — so it is worth holding the substance of the amendment rather than only its number. Expect the distractors to be real amendments, and expect at least one of them to be numerically adjacent to the answer.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following subjects is NOT within the legislative competence of the Legislative Assembly of the National Capital Territory of Delhi under Article 239AA ?

  • (a)Public health
  • (b)Police
  • (c)Agriculture
  • (d)Education

  Answer(b) Police — Article 239AA(3)(a) gives the Delhi Assembly power to legislate on matters in the State List and the Concurrent List as they apply to Union Territories, but expressly excludes entries relating to public order, police and land, which remain with the Union.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The National Capital Region (NCR) was constituted under which of the following ?

  • (a)The Constitution (Sixty-ninth Amendment) Act, 1991
  • (b)The National Capital Region Planning Board Act, 1985
  • (c)Article 239AA of the Constitution
  • (d)The Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991

  Answer(b) The National Capital Region Planning Board Act, 1985 — the NCR is a statutory planning region covering Delhi and adjoining districts of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The 69th Amendment and Article 239AA created the National Capital Territory, which is a different thing altogether.