MPSC 2021 Prelims Paper-I · Question 79 of 100

Correct — option (3), statements (a) and (c). Statement (a) is right. Article 172(2) provides that the Legislative Council of a State shall not be subject to dissolution, but that as nearly as possible one-third of its members shall retire as soon as may be on the expiration of every second year. A Council is therefore a continuing or permanent chamber in exactly the sense the Rajya Sabha is: individual members come and go on six-year terms with a third retiring every two years, but the House itself never comes to an end and cannot be dissolved by anybody. That is the sharpest contrast with the Legislative Assembly, which sits for five years unless sooner dissolved and can be dissolved by the Governor. Statement (c) is right as well, and it needs to be read carefully because it contains a negation of its own — 'Except few nominated members', as the paper prints it — which describes the membership of the Council and is not the question's ask. Article 171(3) divides the Council's membership five ways. One-third is elected by an electorate consisting of members of municipalities, district boards and other local authorities in the State; one-third is elected by the members of the Legislative Assembly from among persons who are not members of the Assembly; one-twelfth is elected by graduates of three years' standing residing in the State; one-twelfth is elected by teachers of at least three years' standing in institutions not lower than secondary schools; and the remaining one-sixth is nominated by the Governor from persons having special knowledge or practical experience in literature, science, art, the co-operative movement and social service. So five-sixths of the House reaches it by election, and in every case the electorate is a defined body — of representatives, or of graduates and teachers voting directly in their own registered constituencies — rather than the general public, which is why standard accounts call the Council indirectly constituted, while the remaining sixth is nominated. That is precisely what statement (c) says. Statement (b) is the false one. Article 182 provides that the Legislative Council shall choose two of its own members to be Chairman and Deputy Chairman, so the Council elects its presiding officer from within itself. The Governor is not the Chairman and could not be, for he is not a member of either House — although under Article 168 the State legislature consists of the Governor together with the House or Houses, so he is part of the legislature without sitting in it. The confusion the statement plays on is with the Union Parliament, where the Vice-President of India is the ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha; there is no equivalent office at the State level. Since statements (a) and (c) stand and statement (b) falls, the keyed option is the one pairing (a) with (c). Two printing points: statement (c) writes 'Legislative council' with a small c where the other two statements capitalise it, and option (4) reads 'None of above' without the definite article.

• (1)(a) and (b) — This pairs the true statement (a) with the false statement (b) about the Governor presiding over the Council. Article 182 gives the Council the power to choose two of its own members as Chairman and Deputy Chairman, and the Chairman may be removed by a resolution of the Council passed by a majority of all the then members, after fourteen days' notice. The Governor has no seat and no vote in either House. What he does have are the functions Article 168 and the rest of Part VI give him from outside the House: he summons and prorogues the Houses, may dissolve the Assembly, addresses the House or Houses at the commencement of the first session after each general election and at the beginning of the first session of each year, may send messages, and gives or withholds assent to Bills. Presiding is not among them, and the office of Chairman of the Council is not an executive office at all.
• (2)(b) and (c) — This pairs the false statement (b) with the true statement (c), so it fails on the presiding officer alone. It is worth using the occasion to fix the parallel between the Union and the States, because the Commission tests it repeatedly and the two are not symmetrical. In Parliament the Rajya Sabha is presided over by the Vice-President of India as ex-officio Chairman, an outsider to the House, while the Deputy Chairman is chosen by the House from among its members. In a State legislature both the Chairman and the Deputy Chairman of the Council are chosen by the Council from among its own members, and both the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly are likewise chosen by the Assembly from among its members. So the ex-officio arrangement exists at the Union level only, and importing it into the State legislature is the error this statement invites.
• (4)None of above — This asserts that none of the three statements is correct, which cannot be sustained, since statements (a) and (c) both reproduce the constitutional position accurately: the Council is a continuing chamber not subject to dissolution under Article 172(2), and five-sixths of its members are indirectly elected while one-sixth is nominated by the Governor under Article 171(3). An option denying everything is a real answer in some statement lists, but it requires every statement to fail, and here two of the three come straight from the text of the Constitution. Note also the printed wording, 'None of above' rather than 'None of the above'. This paper spells its escape options in many different ways, and a candidate who has trained himself to recognise a remembered phrase rather than to read the option as printed can misidentify what he is choosing.

A State legislature under Article 168 consists of the Governor and either one House or two. Where there are two, the lower is the Legislative Assembly and the upper the Legislative Council. Article 169 allows Parliament to create or abolish a Council if the Legislative Assembly of the State passes a resolution to that effect by a majority of the total membership of the Assembly and by not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting, and such a law is expressly not deemed to be an amendment of the Constitution for the purposes of Article 368. At present six States have a Legislative Council — Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh. Article 171(1) fixes the strength at not more than one-third of the strength of the Legislative Assembly of the State and not less than forty; Maharashtra's Vidhan Parishad has seventy-eight members. Article 171(3) prescribes the fivefold composition — one-third by local authorities, one-third by the members of the Assembly from non-members, one-twelfth by graduates, one-twelfth by teachers, and one-sixth nominated by the Governor for distinction in literature, science, art, the co-operative movement and social service. Members serve six years, one-third retiring every second year, and the House is not subject to dissolution. Its powers are markedly weaker than the Assembly's: a Money Bill cannot be introduced in it and it may hold such a Bill for only fourteen days, on an ordinary Bill it can delay proceedings for a maximum of about four months in all, there is no provision for a joint sitting to resolve a deadlock, and the council of ministers is responsible to the Assembly alone.

State legislatures are examined heavily in MPSC papers, and the Legislative Council attracts more than its share of questions for two reasons: Maharashtra has one, so the topic is close to home, and the Council's rules differ from the Rajya Sabha's in ways that are easy to confuse. The Commission's characteristic device is exactly the one used here — to take a feature of the Union Parliament and transplant it to a State, in this case making the Governor the ex-officio Chairman of the Council on the model of the Vice-President in the Rajya Sabha. The defence is to prepare the two legislatures side by side rather than separately, noting at each point whether the State position matches the Union one or departs from it. This question also illustrates the difference between a negation inside a statement and a negation in the stem. Statement (c) begins 'Except few nominated members', but the question itself asks straightforwardly which statements are correct; the exception qualifies the description of the membership and nothing more. Candidates who have trained themselves to look out for negative stems sometimes read such a phrase as inverting the whole question, which loses a mark on a statement that is simply true.

• Article 172(2): a State Legislative Council is not subject to dissolution — it is a permanent or continuing chamber, and as nearly as possible one-third of its members retire on the expiration of every second year, each member serving six years.
• Article 171(3): one-third of the members are elected by local authorities, one-third by the members of the Legislative Assembly from persons who are not members of it, one-twelfth by graduates of three years' standing and one-twelfth by teachers of three years' standing, while the remaining one-sixth are nominated by the Governor.
• Article 182: the Legislative Council chooses two of its own members to be Chairman and Deputy Chairman; the Governor is not a member of either House and does not preside, unlike the Vice-President of India, who is ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha.
• Article 171(1): the strength of a Council may not exceed one-third of the strength of the State's Legislative Assembly and may not be less than forty; six States have a Council at present — Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh — and Maharashtra's has seventy-eight members.
• Article 169: Parliament may create or abolish a Legislative Council if the State's Legislative Assembly passes a resolution by a majority of its total membership and two-thirds of those present and voting, and such a law is not deemed to be a constitutional amendment under Article 368.

• Transplanting a Union arrangement to a State: the Vice-President is ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, but a Legislative Council elects its own Chairman from among its members
• Treating a negation inside a statement, such as 'Except few nominated members', as though it inverted the question, when the stem is asking plainly which statements are correct
• Assuming a Legislative Council can be dissolved like an Assembly, when Article 172(2) makes it a continuing House whose members retire by rotation
• Forgetting that the Governor is part of the State legislature under Article 168 while not being a member of either House, which is what makes presiding impossible for him

MPSC asks the Legislative Council as statement lists of this kind, as questions on its composition fractions, on who nominates the one-sixth and for what distinction, on how a Council is created or abolished, and on how its powers compare with the Assembly's. Because Maharashtra has a Council, questions sometimes come with a local edge — the strength of the Vidhan Parishad, the graduates' and teachers' constituencies, the rotation of retirements. The Commission also likes the comparison with the Rajya Sabha, where the differences are numerous: the manner of election, the presiding officer, the power over Money Bills and the absence of a joint sitting for the States. A candidate who prepares a two-column comparison of the Union and State legislatures, marking at each row whether the two agree or differ, will find nearly every question in this area answerable at a glance.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In a State Legislative Council, what proportion of the members is nominated by the Governor, and on what basis ?

  • (a)One-twelfth, from among retired public servants
  • (b)One-sixth, from persons having special knowledge or practical experience in literature, science, art, the co-operative movement and social service
  • (c)One-third, from among members of local authorities
  • (d)One-half, from persons recommended by the Chief Minister

  Answer(b) One-sixth, from persons having special knowledge or practical experience in literature, science, art, the co-operative movement and social service — Article 171(3)(e) reserves this share for nomination by the Governor and specifies those five fields. The other fractions are all filled by indirect election: one-third by local authorities, one-third by the members of the Legislative Assembly from persons who are not members of it, one-twelfth by graduates of three years' standing and one-twelfth by teachers of three years' standing. The co-operative movement in that list is worth remembering, since it is the field candidates most often omit.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A State Legislative Council may be created or abolished by

  • (a)the Governor by notification, on the advice of the council of ministers
  • (b)Parliament by law, if the Legislative Assembly of the State passes a resolution by a special majority
  • (c)the State legislature by an amendment of the Constitution under Article 368
  • (d)the President by order, on the recommendation of the Election Commission

  Answer(b) Parliament by law, if the Legislative Assembly of the State passes a resolution by a special majority — Article 169 requires a resolution of the Assembly supported by a majority of its total membership and by not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting, after which Parliament may enact the law creating or abolishing the Council. Such a law is expressly not deemed to be an amendment of the Constitution for the purposes of Article 368, even though it alters the First Schedule of arrangements for that State, so no ratification by other States is needed. Neither the Governor nor the President can do it by executive act.