MPSC 2026 Prelims Paper-I · Question 73 of 100

Correct — option (4), Governor. The office is created by Article 165 of the Constitution, and clause (3) of that Article settles this question in a single sentence: the Advocate-General holds office during the pleasure of the Governor and receives such remuneration as the Governor may determine. Everything about the office runs through the Governor. Clause (1) provides that the Governor of each State shall appoint a person qualified to be a judge of a High Court to be Advocate-General for the State. Clause (2) provides that it is the Advocate-General's duty to advise the Government of the State on such legal matters and to perform such other duties of a legal character as the Governor from time to time refers or assigns to him, besides discharging the functions conferred on him by the Constitution or any other law. Clause (3) then fixes both his tenure and his pay in the Governor's hands. Note what the Constitution deliberately does not do: it does not fix a term for the office, it does not prescribe a procedure or grounds for removal, and it does not lay down a scale of remuneration. All three are left to the Governor, which in practice means to the State government whose advice the Governor acts upon. That is a design choice worth registering, because it distinguishes this office from those whose salaries Parliament or a State legislature must fix by law and whose holders can be removed only by a prescribed process.

• (1)Parliament — Parliament has no part in the affairs of a State's Advocate-General. It does fix salaries by law for several other constitutional functionaries — those of the judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts, and of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, are determined by Parliament and charged on the Consolidated Fund — and it is that pattern which makes this option superficially plausible. But the Advocate-General is a State office created by Article 165 and placed wholly under the Governor. Confusing 'a salary that Parliament fixes by law' with 'a salary that an executive authority determines' is the underlying error, and the two categories are worth keeping apart across the whole polity syllabus.
• (2)President — This is the trap the question is built around, because the President does exactly this job for the corresponding office at the Centre. The Attorney-General of India is appointed by the President under Article 76, holds office during the pleasure of the President, and receives such remuneration as the President may determine. Substitute Governor for President and State for Union and you have Article 165. A candidate who has learnt the Attorney-General's provisions and then assumes the President appoints and pays the Advocate-General as well has mapped the wrong authority onto the right structure — which is precisely the error UPSC set as a false statement in 2009.
• (3)Legislative Assembly — The State legislature does not determine the Advocate-General's remuneration, and Article 165(3) leaves no room for it to do so. What the legislature does have is a connection of a different kind: under Article 177 the Advocate-General has the right to speak in, and to take part in the proceedings of, both Houses of the State legislature and any committee of which he is named a member, though he has no right to vote. He also enjoys the privileges and immunities of a member. That right of audience makes the legislature feel like the natural home of the office and is what makes this option attractive; a right to speak in a House is not a power in that House to fix pay.

The Advocate-General is the highest law officer in a State, the exact counterpart of the Attorney-General of India at the Union level, and the two offices should be learnt as a matched pair. The Governor appoints him, and the only qualification the Constitution prescribes is that he must be a person qualified to be appointed a judge of a High Court — which in turn requires that he be a citizen of India and have held a judicial office in the territory of India for ten years, or have been an advocate of a High Court for ten years. His duties are to advise the State government on legal matters referred to him by the Governor, to perform such other duties of a legal character as the Governor assigns, and to discharge the functions conferred on him by the Constitution or by any law. He holds office during the pleasure of the Governor and is paid what the Governor determines. Because the Constitution prescribes neither a term nor a removal procedure, the tenure is in substance political: an Advocate-General conventionally resigns when the government that recommended him leaves office.

Two features of the office are asked about almost as often as the appointment. First, the right of audience in the legislature: Article 177 entitles the Advocate-General to speak in and take part in the proceedings of both Houses of the State legislature and of any committee of which he is named a member, without the right to vote, and gives him the privileges and immunities of a member. That makes him one of the very few non-members who may address a House. Second, his status: he is not a full-time salaried government servant and is not, by convention, debarred from private legal practice, which is again the position of the Attorney-General of India. Around him the State government also engages other law officers — an Advocate-General's office, additional and assistant advocates-general, government pleaders and public prosecutors — but only the Advocate-General is a creature of the Constitution; the rest are creatures of State rules.

• Article 165(3): the Advocate-General holds office during the pleasure of the Governor and receives such remuneration as the Governor may determine. Neither the term of office nor a removal procedure nor a pay scale is fixed by the Constitution.
• Article 165(1): the Governor of each State appoints as Advocate-General a person qualified to be appointed a judge of a High Court — a citizen of India who has held judicial office in India for ten years or been an advocate of a High Court for ten years.
• Article 165(2): his duty is to advise the State government on legal matters and to perform other duties of a legal character referred or assigned to him by the Governor, besides functions conferred by the Constitution or any law.
• Article 177: the Advocate-General may speak in and take part in the proceedings of both Houses of the State legislature and any committee of which he is named a member, but has no right to vote; he enjoys the privileges and immunities of a member.
• The Union counterpart is the Attorney-General of India under Article 76 — appointed by the President, holding office during the President's pleasure, and receiving such remuneration as the President may determine. Substituting Governor for President and State for Union converts one set of provisions into the other.

• Mapping the Union office onto the State one. The President appoints and pays the Attorney-General of India; the Governor appoints and pays the Advocate-General of a State.
• Assuming a right to speak in a legislature implies control by that legislature. The Advocate-General may address both Houses under Article 177, but the House has no say in his appointment, tenure or pay.
• Looking for a fixed term or a removal procedure in the Constitution. There is none — the office is held during the Governor's pleasure, which is exactly why examiners like it.

This office is asked in short, single-fact items because that is what it offers: who appoints, what qualification is needed, during whose pleasure the office is held, who fixes the pay, and whether he can speak or vote in the legislature. State commissions set them one at a time, as here. UPSC prefers the composite two-statement format, planting a plausible error — that the President appoints on the Governor's recommendation, or that the Advocate-General is a member of the State Council of Ministers — and asking whether the statements are correct. Either way the whole topic is contained in Articles 165 and 177 plus the parallel Article 76, and reading those three provisions once in the bare text is more efficient than any summary of them.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Advocate-General of a State holds office :

  • (a)for a fixed term of five years
  • (b)during the pleasure of the Governor
  • (c)until he attains the age of sixty-two years
  • (d)during the pleasure of the President

  Answer(b) during the pleasure of the Governor — Article 165(3) says so expressly, and the Constitution prescribes neither a fixed term nor any procedure or ground for removal. By convention an Advocate-General resigns when the government on whose advice he was appointed leaves office.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Constitution of India, the Advocate-General of a State has the right to :

  • (a)speak and vote in both Houses of the State legislature
  • (b)speak in both Houses of the State legislature but not to vote
  • (c)attend the sittings of the State Council of Ministers
  • (d)speak only in the Legislative Assembly and not in the Legislative Council

  Answer(b) speak in both Houses of the State legislature but not to vote — Article 177 gives him the right to speak in and take part in the proceedings of both Houses and of any committee of which he is named a member, along with the privileges and immunities of a member, but expressly withholds the right to vote. Article 88 makes the identical provision for the Attorney-General of India in Parliament.