MPSC 2026 Prelims Paper-I · Question 75 of 100

Correct — option (4), 'Only (c)'. The stem asks for the INCORRECT statement, with 'incorrect' printed in bold, and exactly one of the four fails. Statement (a) is true: Sir Benegal Narsing Rau was appointed Constitutional Adviser to the Constituent Assembly in July 1946, and it was in that capacity, not as a member of the Drafting Committee, that he did his work. Statement (b) is true: he prepared the first draft of the Constitution in October 1947, after studying the constitutions of many countries and consulting jurists abroad. Statement (d) is true: that draft ran to 243 articles and 13 schedules — the Parliament's own digital library holds the document under the title 'First Draft of the Constitution of India and Schedules (As Prepared by the Constitutional Adviser Shri B N Rau), October 1947'. Statement (c) therefore fails, because it attributes to the same document a different and wrong count of 310 articles and 8 schedules. Notice how the question is actually built, because the architecture does half the work. Statements (c) and (d) are mutually contradictory descriptions of one document, so exactly one of them must be false. That means the answer must contain either (c) or (d) — and since (a) and (b) are both plainly true, options (1) and (2), each of which condemns one of them, are dead on arrival. The whole question then reduces to a single fact: which pair of numbers belongs to Rau's draft. It is 243 and 13, so the incorrect statement is (c) and the answer is option (4).

• (1)(a) and (c) — This option is right about (c) but wrong about (a), and one bad limb sinks it. Statement (a) accurately describes Rau's role: he was the Constitutional Adviser to the Constituent Assembly, appointed in July 1946, a full-time official position distinct from membership of any committee. The word 'advisor' in the statement is exactly the office he held, so there is nothing in it to reject. A candidate reaches this option by feeling that Rau's association with the Assembly is somehow overstated — perhaps because the drafting of the Constitution is popularly associated with Dr B.R. Ambedkar and the Drafting Committee — and then looking for an option that discounts statement (a).
• (2)(b) and (c) — Again correct on (c) and wrong on (b). October 1947 is the right date for Rau's draft, and the document is catalogued under that month. The confusion this option feeds on is the sequence of the two drafts. Rau's draft came first, in October 1947; the Drafting Committee, chaired by Dr Ambedkar and constituted in August 1947, worked on it and published the Draft Constitution of India in February 1948. A candidate who remembers only 'February 1948' as the date of 'the draft Constitution' will read statement (b) as wrong. It is not: it is about a different document, prepared by a different person, four months earlier.
• (3)Only (d) — This is the mirror image of the correct answer and the only genuinely dangerous option in the set, because it survives every structural elimination and fails only on the numbers. It asserts that 243 articles and 13 schedules is the wrong description of Rau's draft, which would leave 310 articles and 8 schedules as the right one. It is the other way round: 243 and 13 are the figures for Rau's October 1947 draft. The '8 Schedules' in statement (c) is a borrowed number — the Constitution as adopted on 26 November 1949 had 395 articles and 8 schedules — and lifting a true figure from a different document into a false statement is the standard way this kind of distractor is manufactured.

The Constitution passed through several hands and several documents, and questions of this type are really testing whether a candidate can keep them apart. B.N. Rau was appointed Constitutional Adviser to the Constituent Assembly in July 1946. He studied the constitutions of a large number of countries and travelled abroad to consult constitutional lawyers and judges, and in October 1947 he produced the first draft of the Constitution — 243 articles and 13 schedules — built largely by assembling and reconciling the reports of the Assembly's various committees. The Drafting Committee, constituted on 29 August 1947 under the chairmanship of Dr B.R. Ambedkar, then worked on that material and published the Draft Constitution of India in February 1948. That draft was debated clause by clause, amended over hundreds of sittings, and the Constitution as finally adopted on 26 November 1949 contained a Preamble, 395 articles and 8 schedules. So: Rau drafted, the Drafting Committee redrafted, the Assembly adopted — three stages, three documents, three sets of numbers.

The Constituent Assembly itself was constituted under the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946, its provincial members being elected indirectly by the members of the Provincial Legislative Assemblies through proportional representation by single transferable vote, with seats for the princely states to be filled by nomination. It first met on 9 December 1946, with Dr Sachchidananda Sinha as temporary chairman, and elected Dr Rajendra Prasad as its permanent President. It worked through a large number of committees, of which the major ones included the Union Constitution Committee under Jawaharlal Nehru, the Provincial Constitution Committee under Sardar Patel, the Advisory Committee on Fundamental Rights and Minorities under Patel, and the Drafting Committee under Dr Ambedkar. Rau's position sat outside this committee structure — he was an official adviser serving the Assembly as a whole rather than a member representing a constituency. He later represented India at the United Nations and served as a judge of the International Court of Justice.

• Sir B.N. Rau was appointed Constitutional Adviser to the Constituent Assembly in July 1946. He was an adviser and official, not an elected member of the Assembly or a member of the Drafting Committee.
• Rau prepared the first draft of the Constitution in October 1947. It contained 243 Articles and 13 Schedules, and is held by the Parliament's digital library as the 'First Draft of the Constitution of India and Schedules (As Prepared by the Constitutional Adviser Shri B N Rau), October 1947'.
• The Drafting Committee, constituted on 29 August 1947 under the chairmanship of Dr B.R. Ambedkar, worked on Rau's material and published the Draft Constitution of India in February 1948.
• The Constitution as adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 26 November 1949 contained a Preamble, 395 Articles and 8 Schedules. It came into force on 26 January 1950. The number of Schedules today is 12.
• The Constituent Assembly first met on 9 December 1946; Dr Sachchidananda Sinha was its temporary chairman and Dr Rajendra Prasad was elected its permanent President. Provincial members were elected indirectly by the Provincial Legislative Assemblies.

• Confusing Rau's October 1947 draft with the Drafting Committee's February 1948 Draft Constitution. They are different documents by different hands, and their figures do not transfer.
• Being caught by a borrowed number. Statement (c)'s '8 Schedules' is the count of the Constitution as adopted, not of Rau's draft — a true figure planted in a false statement.
• Missing the bolded 'incorrect'. Where two statements in a set contradict each other, exactly one must be false, and that alone eliminates every option which also condemns a statement you know to be true.

Constituent Assembly questions come in three shapes and this paper uses the hardest of them. The role question asks who held which position — Constitutional Adviser, President of the Assembly, chairman of a named committee. The date question asks when the Assembly first met, when the Constitution was adopted and when it came into force, and plays on the two-month gap between adoption and commencement. The number question, which is the shape here, asks for counts of articles and schedules and depends entirely on attaching the right pair of numbers to the right document. State commissions set number questions more readily than UPSC does, and they reward a short list written out once: Rau's draft 243 and 13; adopted Constitution 395 and 8; schedules today 12. Note also the structural lesson from this item — when two statements in the list contradict each other, the option set can often be halved before any recall is required.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Constitution of India as adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 26 November 1949 contained :

  • (a)243 Articles and 13 Schedules
  • (b)395 Articles and 8 Schedules
  • (c)448 Articles and 12 Schedules
  • (d)310 Articles and 9 Schedules

  Answer(b) 395 Articles and 8 Schedules, along with a Preamble. The figures in option (a) belong to B.N. Rau's first draft of October 1947, and the number of Schedules has since risen to 12 through amendment — so all three counts describe real things, but only one of them describes the Constitution as adopted.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Who among the following prepared the first draft of the Constitution of India in October 1947, in the capacity of Constitutional Adviser to the Constituent Assembly?

  • (a)Dr B.R. Ambedkar
  • (b)Sir B.N. Rau
  • (c)Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar
  • (d)K.M. Munshi

  Answer(b) Sir B.N. Rau — appointed Constitutional Adviser in July 1946, he produced the first draft of 243 articles and 13 schedules in October 1947. Dr Ambedkar chaired the Drafting Committee, which worked on that material and published the Draft Constitution in February 1948; Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar and K.M. Munshi were members of that committee.