MPSC 2026 Prelims Paper-I · Question 71 of 100

Correct — option (3), Kangaroo closure. A closure motion is a device by which a member moves that the debate on a matter be cut short and the matter put to vote; if the House approves the motion, discussion stops at once. Parliamentary practice recognises four kinds of closure, and the stem here reproduces the description of one of them almost word for word. Under kangaroo closure only the important clauses of a bill are taken up for debate and for voting, while the clauses in between are skipped over and treated as having been passed. The name is a picture of the procedure: a kangaroo does not walk over the ground between two points, it hops from one to the next, and that is what the Chair does with the clause list — landing on the clauses that matter and passing over the ground between them. The discriminating feature, and the one the examiner is testing, is the basis on which clauses are dropped. Under kangaroo closure the basis is IMPORTANCE, decided in advance: some clauses are judged worth the House's time and the rest are not. That is different from bundling clauses together for a joint vote, and different again from running out of time and sweeping up whatever is left. Because the stem specifies that only important clauses are debated and voted while the intervening ones are skipped and taken as passed, the answer is kangaroo closure and no other.

• (1)Simple closure — Under simple closure a member moves that 'the matter having been sufficiently discussed be now put to vote'. It operates on the debate as a whole, not on a clause list: it says the House has heard enough and should now decide. There is no selection of important clauses, nothing is skipped, and no clause is deemed passed without a vote. Simple closure is the plainest and most general of the four devices, and it is the one to fall back on when a question describes a debate being ended in its entirety rather than a bill being worked through clause by clause.
• (2)Closure by compartments — This is the closest relative of the keyed answer and the option most likely to catch a candidate who half-remembers the list. Under closure by compartments, the clauses of a bill or a lengthy resolution are grouped into parts before the debate begins; the House then debates each part as a whole and votes on the whole part together. Notice what does NOT happen: nothing is skipped. Every clause is voted upon — but in bundles rather than one at a time. Kangaroo closure, by contrast, leaves the unimportant clauses out of the debate and the voting altogether and treats them as passed. Grouping is not the same as omitting.
• (4)Guillotine closure — Under guillotine closure the clauses of a bill, or the demands for grants, that have not been discussed are put to vote along with those that have, because the time allotted for the discussion has run out. The trigger is the clock, not the judgment that a clause is unimportant. In the Indian Parliament the guillotine is most familiar from the budget session: on the last of the days allotted for the demands for grants, the Speaker puts all the outstanding demands to the vote whether they have been debated or not. So both kangaroo and guillotine leave clauses undiscussed, but for opposite reasons — kangaroo selects by importance in advance, guillotine sweeps up the remainder when time expires.

The four closure motions are best learnt as a single set defined against one another. Simple closure ends the debate on a matter as a whole once the House agrees it has been sufficiently discussed. Closure by compartments groups clauses into parts before the debate opens and votes each part as a unit, so everything is voted but nothing individually. Kangaroo closure selects the important clauses for debate and vote and skips the rest, which are taken as passed. Guillotine closure puts undiscussed clauses or demands to the vote together with the discussed ones because the allotted time has expired. All four exist for the same reason — parliamentary time is finite while the legislative programme is not — and all four transfer some control over what gets debated from the floor of the House to those who set the agenda, which is why their use is politically contested as well as procedurally routine.

Closure sits inside a wider family of procedural devices that a candidate is expected to hold together. Motions that raise a matter include the calling attention motion, the adjournment motion, which sets aside the normal business to discuss a definite matter of urgent public importance and carries an element of censure, and the no-confidence motion, which can be moved only in the Lok Sabha and, if carried, obliges the Council of Ministers to resign. Motions that regulate proceedings include the point of order, the privilege motion and the censure motion. Financial control is exercised through cut motions on the demands for grants — the policy cut, which reduces a demand to one rupee and signals disapproval of the underlying policy; the economy cut, which proposes a specific reduction in the amount; and the token cut, which reduces a demand by one hundred rupees to ventilate a particular grievance. The guillotine belongs to that same budget process, which is why questions on it frequently arrive dressed as questions about the budget rather than about closure.

• A closure motion is moved to cut short a debate on a matter before the House. If it is approved, the debate stops at once and the matter is put to vote. Four kinds are recognised.
• Simple closure — a member moves that the matter, having been sufficiently discussed, be now put to vote. It ends the debate as a whole.
• Closure by compartments — the clauses of a bill or a lengthy resolution are grouped into parts before the debate begins; each part is debated and then voted as a whole. Nothing is skipped; the voting is done in bundles.
• Kangaroo closure — only the important clauses are taken up for debate and voting, and the intervening clauses are skipped over and taken as passed. Selection is by importance, decided in advance.
• Guillotine closure — undiscussed clauses of a bill, or undiscussed demands for grants, are put to vote along with the discussed ones because the time allotted has run out. In the budget session the Speaker guillotines all outstanding demands on the last allotted day.

• Mixing up kangaroo with guillotine. Both leave clauses undiscussed, but kangaroo drops them because they are judged unimportant while guillotine votes them through because the clock has run out.
• Mixing up kangaroo with closure by compartments. Compartments bundles clauses and votes every bundle; kangaroo skips clauses entirely and deems them passed.
• Assuming the guillotine belongs only to bills. Its most familiar Indian use is on the demands for grants during the budget session, when all outstanding demands are put to vote on the last allotted day.

The four closure motions are almost always asked by definition-to-name, exactly as here: the paper reproduces the textbook description of one of them and offers all four as options. The reverse form — name given, definition to be chosen — appears less often but is equally easy to prepare for. A third form embeds the guillotine in a budget question and asks what happens to demands for grants that remain undiscussed on the last allotted day. Because the four definitions are short and mutually exclusive, this is one of the highest-return facts per minute in the polity syllabus: learn the four one-line descriptions and any version of the question becomes mechanical. The parliamentary-procedure area more broadly rewards the same treatment — short, sharply defined terms that papers ask about directly rather than analytically.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In the Indian Parliament, the device by which all the outstanding demands for grants are put to vote on the last day allotted for their discussion, whether or not they have been debated, is called :

  • (a)Simple closure
  • (b)Kangaroo closure
  • (c)Guillotine
  • (d)Closure by compartments

  Answer(c) Guillotine — the Speaker puts every outstanding demand to the vote once the allotted time expires, so that the financial business of the House is completed on schedule. The trigger is the exhaustion of time, which distinguishes it from kangaroo closure, where clauses are skipped because they are judged unimportant.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under which form of closure are the clauses of a bill grouped into parts before the debate begins, each part then being debated and voted upon as a whole?

  • (a)Closure by compartments
  • (b)Kangaroo closure
  • (c)Simple closure
  • (d)Guillotine closure

  Answer(a) Closure by compartments — the clauses are bundled in advance and the House votes on each bundle as a unit, so every clause is in fact voted upon, just not individually. Kangaroo closure, by contrast, omits the unimportant clauses from debate and voting altogether and treats them as passed.