Identify the correct statement/s from the following. A. A person who holds, or who has held office as President shall, subject to the other provisions of the Constitution, be eligible for re-election to that office. B. No person shall be eligible for election as President unless he is qualified for election as a member of the Council of the States.
- (1)Only A
- (2)Only B
- (3)Both A and B
- (4)None of the above
Correct — option (1), 'Only A'. Statement A reproduces Article 57 of the Constitution word for word: a person who holds, or who has held, office as President is, subject to the Constitution's other provisions, eligible for re-election to that office — India places no limit on the number of terms a President may serve, unlike the two-term cap fixed for the American presidency. Statement B misstates Article 58. Article 58(1)(c) actually requires that no person shall be eligible for election as President unless he is qualified for election as a member of the House of the People — that is, the Lok Sabha — not the Council of States, which is the Rajya Sabha. The substitution of one House for the other is a small change in wording with a real constitutional difference: the qualifications for the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha are not identical (the minimum age, for instance, is 25 for the Lok Sabha against 30 for the Rajya Sabha), so an eligibility rule keyed to the wrong House is not simply cosmetic. Because B swaps 'House of the People' for 'Council of the States', it is false as printed, and only statement A stands.
- (2)Only B — Keeps the statement that has the House swapped and drops the one that is verbatim Article 57. Article 58(1)(c) ties presidential eligibility to qualification for the House of the People (Lok Sabha), not the Council of States (Rajya Sabha), so statement B as printed does not match the Constitution's actual text.
- (3)Both A and B — Requires both statements to be accurate reproductions of their respective articles, but only one is. Statement A is Article 57 verbatim; statement B has substituted 'Council of the States' for the Constitution's actual wording, 'House of the People', so it cannot be credited alongside A.
- (4)None of the above — Rejects even the statement that is a correct, verbatim restatement of Article 57 on re-eligibility for the presidency. A is accurate as printed and should be credited; only B fails.
Articles 57 and 58 of the Constitution govern who may become President of India and how many times. Article 57 removes any limit on re-election — a former or sitting President may stand again, any number of times, subject only to the Constitution's other provisions (such as the grounds for removal under Article 61). Article 58 sets the qualifications for the office: a citizen of India, at least 35 years old, and qualified for election as a member of the House of the People (Lok Sabha) — plus the further condition, under Article 58(2), that the person must not hold any office of profit under the Government of India, a State Government, or any local or other authority, with specific carve-outs for the offices of President and Vice-President themselves and for State Governors and Union or State Ministers.
MPSC and UPSC both test Articles 57 and 58 by lifting near-verbatim constitutional text and altering a single word or phrase — most often swapping 'House of the People' for 'Council of the States', since the two Houses sound interchangeable to a candidate who has not held the exact article text in mind. The reliable defence for this family of question is memorising the precise House named in Article 58(1)(c), because the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha differ in their own eligibility conditions (minimum age 25 versus 30, among others) and the swap is not a harmless paraphrase.
- Article 57: a person who holds or has held office as President is eligible for re-election to that office, subject to the Constitution's other provisions — there is no cap on the number of terms.
- Article 58(1): eligibility for President requires citizenship of India, a minimum age of 35 years, and qualification for election as a member of the House of the People (Lok Sabha) — not the Council of States (Rajya Sabha).
- Article 58(2): a candidate for President must not hold any office of profit under the Union, a State, or a local or other authority, with carve-outs for the President, Vice-President, State Governors, and Union or State Ministers.
- The minimum age for Lok Sabha membership is 25 years; for Rajya Sabha membership it is 30 years — the two Houses' eligibility conditions are not identical, which is why the exact House named in Article 58 matters.
- The President of India is elected not directly by citizens but by an electoral college of elected members of both Houses of Parliament and the elected members of the Legislative Assemblies of the States (and Union Territories with legislatures), under Article 54.
A is verbatim Article 57; B swaps in the wrong House.
- Swapping 'House of the People' for 'Council of the States' (or the reverse) when reciting Article 58's eligibility condition — the two Houses have different minimum-age requirements, so the swap is a substantive error, not a stylistic one
- Assuming India caps presidential terms the way the United States does — Article 57 places no limit on re-election
- Confusing the qualifications for the office of President (Article 58) with the qualifications for the office of Vice-President (Article 66), which instead ties eligibility to the Council of States (Rajya Sabha)
MPSC and UPSC both like to print a nearly verbatim constitutional article alongside a second one with a single term quietly swapped, and Article 58's 'House of the People' is a favourite target because the Vice-President's own eligibility article, Article 66, genuinely does reference the Council of States — so a candidate who has the two offices' qualifying Houses reversed in memory finds the wrong statement plausible rather than obviously false. The defence is to hold, separately, which House qualifies a candidate for President (Lok Sabha) and which qualifies a candidate for Vice-President (Rajya Sabha).
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Under Article 58 of the Constitution, a candidate for the office of President must be qualified for election as a member of which House of Parliament ?
- (a)The Council of States
- (b)The House of the People
- (c)Either House, at the candidate's option
- (d)No such qualification is prescribed
Answer(b) The House of the People — Article 58(1)(c) requires qualification for election to the Lok Sabha. The Vice-President's eligibility under Article 66, by contrast, is tied to qualification for the Council of States (Rajya Sabha), which is the pairing that this family of question is designed to test.
- practice — not a real PYQ
How many times may a person who has already served as President of India be re-elected to that office, under Article 57 ?
- (a)Not at all
- (b)Once only
- (c)Twice only
- (d)There is no limit, subject to the Constitution's other provisions
Answer(d) There is no limit, subject to the Constitution's other provisions — Article 57 places no cap on re-election, unlike the two-term limit fixed for the President of the United States under the 22nd Amendment.