MPSC 2026 Prelims Paper-I · Question 77 of 100

Correct — option (1), 'Only (a), (b)'. The decisive words are in the stem, not in the statements. The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution — set up on 22 February 2000 under the chairmanship of Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah, a former Chief Justice of India, and reporting in 2002 — dealt with Fundamental Duties in a recommendation that opens with the exact phrase the paper uses: 'For effectuating Fundamental Duties, the following steps should be taken.' Under that head the Commission set out a short list of measures — sensitising citizens and creating general awareness of the duties along the lines proposed by the Justice Verma Committee; jealously guarding the right to freedom of religion and the rights of minorities; reforming the whole process of education and freeing it from governmental and political control; and, as its fourth limb, that the 'duty to vote at elections, actively participate in the democratic process of governance and to pay taxes should be included in article 51A'. That fourth limb is the source of statements (a) and (b), and it is the only new duty proposed under the 'effectuating' head. Hence option (1). Honesty requires one further note, because a well-read candidate will have hesitated here. The propositions in statements (c) and (d) are also genuine NCRWC proposals — they appear in the Commission's report as a separate, following recommendation, worded 'The following should also be incorporated as fundamental duties in article 51A', covering the fostering of family values and responsible parenthood and the duty of industrial organisations to educate the children of their employees. They are real, but they sit outside the 'for effectuating Fundamental Duties' head that this stem quotes, and the Commission's final answer key is option (1). Note too that the English stem is ungrammatical as printed — 'has recommended that for effectuating fundamental duties are ____' — which makes the pointer phrase easy to skim past.

• (2)Only (c), (d) — This option selects the two propositions that lie outside the head the stem names. Both are genuine NCRWC proposals, which is why the option is not absurd — but they were made under the Commission's separate recommendation that further duties 'should also be incorporated as fundamental duties in article 51A', not under the recommendation on steps for effectuating the existing duties. The option is therefore the exact complement of the keyed answer: it takes everything the stem excludes and rejects everything it points to. A candidate who remembers the family-values and industrial-organisation proposals but not the voting-and-taxes limb will land here.
• (3)Only (a), (c), (d) — This option admits the duty to vote but drops the duty to pay taxes, which is odd because the two travel together in a single sentence of the Commission's report: 'Duty to vote at elections, actively participate in the democratic process of governance and to pay taxes should be included in article 51A.' There is no version of the recommendation in which voting is proposed and tax-paying is not. The option then adds the two proposals from the separate recommendation. Splitting a phrase that the source keeps whole is a common way of building a distractor, and the defence against it is to remember recommendations as sentences rather than as bullet points.
• (4)All of the above — 'All of the above' is offered eleven times in this paper. It is right only when every listed item can be positively shown to satisfy the stem, and wrong as soon as one cannot. Here the stem is narrow: it asks what the Commission recommended FOR EFFECTUATING fundamental duties, and only statements (a) and (b) fall under that head. Statements (c) and (d) belong to the Commission's separate recommendation for additional duties. The lesson is about reading the stem's qualifier rather than the statements' plausibility — all four propositions are things the Commission said, but the question does not ask what the Commission said, it asks what the Commission recommended under one specific head.

Fundamental Duties are contained in Part IVA of the Constitution, which consists of a single article, Article 51A. They were not in the original Constitution: they were inserted by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976, on the recommendation of the Swaran Singh Committee constituted in that year. The Committee had suggested eight duties; the amendment incorporated ten. An eleventh was added by the Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2002 — the duty of a parent or guardian to provide opportunities for education to his child or ward between the ages of six and fourteen years, inserted alongside the new fundamental right to education. Like the Directive Principles, the Fundamental Duties are non-justiciable: no court can enforce them and no legal sanction attaches to their breach directly. The Swaran Singh Committee had in fact proposed that Parliament be allowed to impose penalties for non-compliance, but that proposal was not accepted, and the duties remain moral and civic obligations given constitutional form.

Two official bodies have since examined how these duties might be made to work. The Justice Verma Committee, which reported in 1999 on the operationalisation of the Fundamental Duties of citizens, identified the legal provisions already on the statute book that give effect to several of them — the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971 being the clearest instance, since Article 51A(a) requires respect for the National Flag and the National Anthem. The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution followed in 2000-2002 and took the question further, recommending both practical steps and additions to the text. Its practical steps were about awareness and education: sensitising citizens, protecting religious freedom and minority rights, and freeing education from governmental and political control so that the will to observe the duties could be cultivated. Its textual proposals were to add to Article 51A a duty to vote at elections, to participate actively in the democratic process and to pay taxes — and, separately, duties relating to family values and responsible parenthood and to the education by industrial organisations of their employees' children.

• Fundamental Duties are in Part IVA, Article 51A, inserted by the 42nd Amendment Act, 1976 on the recommendation of the Swaran Singh Committee. The Committee proposed eight duties; ten were incorporated.
• The eleventh duty — that a parent or guardian provide opportunities for education to his child or ward between the ages of six and fourteen — was added by the 86th Amendment Act, 2002, the same amendment that created the fundamental right to education under Article 21A.
• Fundamental Duties are non-justiciable and carry no direct legal sanction. The Swaran Singh Committee's suggestion that Parliament be empowered to impose penalties for non-compliance was not accepted.
• The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution was set up on 22 February 2000 under Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah, a former Chief Justice of India, and submitted its report in 2002.
• Under the head 'For effectuating Fundamental Duties', the NCRWC recommended awareness-building on the lines of the Justice Verma Committee's report, protection of religious freedom and minority rights, reform of education free of governmental and political control, and the inclusion in Article 51A of a duty to vote at elections, to participate actively in the democratic process of governance and to pay taxes.

• Answering what the Commission recommended rather than what it recommended UNDER THE HEAD the stem names. All four statements are real NCRWC material; only two fall under 'for effectuating fundamental duties'.
• Splitting the voting and tax-paying limb. The Commission proposed them in one sentence — duty to vote, to participate actively in the democratic process, and to pay taxes — so an option that admits one and drops the other is suspect on its face.
• Confusing a Fundamental Duty with a Directive Principle. Protecting weaker sections from social injustice is a Directive Principle under Article 46, not a duty of the citizen, and this exact swap has been set by UPSC.

Fundamental Duties are examined in four shapes. The membership question offers a list and asks which items are actually in Article 51A, with Directive Principles planted among them — the commonest form and the one UPSC has used repeatedly. The provenance question asks which amendment inserted Part IVA, which committee recommended it, how many duties were proposed and how many enacted, and which amendment added the eleventh. The character question asks whether the duties are justiciable and what follows from their not being so. And the reform question, which is this paper's shape, asks what a committee or commission has proposed by way of new duties, drawing on the Swaran Singh, Verma and NCRWC material. State commissions set the fourth kind far more readily than UPSC does, and it is the one that rewards reading the actual recommendation rather than a summary of it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Fundamental Duties were added to the Constitution of India by which amendment, and on whose recommendation?

  • (a)44th Amendment Act, 1978, on the recommendation of the Justice Verma Committee
  • (b)42nd Amendment Act, 1976, on the recommendation of the Swaran Singh Committee
  • (c)86th Amendment Act, 2002, on the recommendation of the NCRWC
  • (d)42nd Amendment Act, 1976, on the recommendation of the Sarkaria Commission

  Answer(b) 42nd Amendment Act, 1976, on the recommendation of the Swaran Singh Committee — which proposed eight duties, of which ten were finally incorporated in the new Part IVA and Article 51A. The Verma Committee reported much later, in 1999, on how the duties might be operationalised, and the 86th Amendment of 2002 added only the eleventh duty.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The eleventh Fundamental Duty, added by the Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2002, requires :

  • (a)every citizen to vote at elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies
  • (b)every citizen to pay taxes honestly and on time
  • (c)a parent or guardian to provide opportunities for education to his child or ward between the ages of six and fourteen years
  • (d)every industrial organisation to educate the children of its employees

  Answer(c) a parent or guardian to provide opportunities for education to his child or ward between the ages of six and fourteen years — Article 51A(k), inserted by the same amendment that created the fundamental right to education under Article 21A. The duties to vote and to pay taxes, and the duty of industrial organisations, were proposed by the NCRWC in 2002 but have not been added to Article 51A.