MPSC 2021 Prelims Paper-I · Question 82 of 100

Correct — option (3), 1987. The count runs from 1937. Bombay Province did not have two chambers until the Government of India Act, 1935 came into operation for the provinces on 1 April 1937; that Act gave several provinces, Bombay among them, a bicameral legislature, and from then the Bombay Legislative Council sat as the upper house alongside the Bombay Legislative Assembly. The House dates its own institutional life from that moment: the first chairman of the Council in its new character, Mangaldas Pakvasa, took office on 22 July 1937, and the list of chairmen of what is today the Maharashtra Legislative Council begins there and runs unbroken to the present holder. Fifty years from 1937 is 1987, and the golden jubilee was marked on exactly that reckoning — a commemorative volume covering the period, 'Fifty Years of Legislative Council in Maharashtra 1937-87', survives in library catalogues under that title. What changed in 1960 was the name and the territory, not the House. When the bilingual State of Bombay was divided on 1 May 1960 and Maharashtra was formed, the same upper chamber continued as the Maharashtra Legislative Council, and Vitthal Sakharam Page became its first chairman under that name on 11 July 1960. Because the House is a continuous body — it is never dissolved, and one-third of its members retire every second year — there is no re-founding event in 1960 to start a new count from, which is precisely why the fiftieth year falls in 1987 and not in 2010. One honest complication is worth knowing rather than being surprised by: the Legislature has since commemorated a CENTENARY of the Council, at a function in Mumbai on 3 September 2024 attended by the President of India, on a longer reckoning of the House's ancestry that reaches back past 1937. The fifty-year count this question is built on is the 1937 one, and on that count the answer is 1987.

• (1)1990 — 1990 would require the Council to have begun in 1940, and nothing in the history of the House starts there. The Government of India Act, 1935 came into operation for the provinces in April 1937; the Congress ministries formed under it in Bombay and elsewhere in 1937 resigned in 1939 over the declaration of war on India's behalf, and the provincial legislatures were suspended for much of what followed — a period of interruption, not of foundation. The option works only on a candidate who has a vague sense that the Council is 'about fifty years older than the present day' and picks a round number near the end of the twentieth century. The way to defeat it is to fix the start date rather than the anniversary: 1937 for bicameralism in Bombay, 1960 for the renaming, and arithmetic does the rest.
• (2)2010 — This is the dangerous option, because it is the golden jubilee of something real. Maharashtra itself was formed on 1 May 1960 and celebrated fifty years of statehood on 1 May 2010, and the Legislative Council took its present name on that same 1960 date. A candidate who reasons 'the MAHARASHTRA Legislative Council cannot be older than Maharashtra' reaches 2010 by a chain of thought that is entirely rational and still wrong, because the House was not created in 1960 — it was renamed. The upper chamber that sat in Bombay from 1937 continued sitting, without dissolution, through the reorganisation; only its territory and its title changed. Remember the distinction as a rule: 1960 is the birthday of the STATE, 1937 the birthday of the CHAMBER, and an anniversary question must be answered from whichever of the two the stem names.
• (4)2000 — 2000 counts fifty years from 1950 and assumes that India's legislatures all begin with the Constitution. They do not. The Constitution that commenced on 26 January 1950 found a Legislative Council already sitting in Bombay under the 1935 Act and carried it forward rather than creating it; Article 168 simply provides that in the States it names there shall be a Legislative Council as well as a Legislative Assembly, and Article 169 gives Parliament the power to create or abolish one when the Assembly of the State passes a resolution to that effect by the special majority prescribed. So 1950 is a change of constitutional foundation for a House that already existed, not a starting point for its age. The same reasoning defeats any 'fifty years from Independence' variant of this question.

A State Legislative Council is optional, and India has very few of them. Article 168 provides for a Legislative Assembly in every State and a Legislative Council in some; Article 169 allows Parliament to create or abolish a Council for a State, but only after the Legislative Assembly of that State has passed a resolution by a majority of the total membership of the Assembly and by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting — and such a law is expressly not to be deemed a constitutional amendment for the purposes of Article 368. Article 171 governs the composition: the total strength of a Council may not exceed one-third of the strength of the Assembly of that State and may not be less than forty. Its membership is put together by an unusual mixture of methods — roughly one-third elected by electorates of members of local authorities, one-third by members of the Legislative Assembly, one-twelfth by graduates of three years' standing, one-twelfth by teachers of at least secondary standing, and the remainder nominated by the Governor from persons having special knowledge or practical experience in literature, science, art, the co-operative movement and social service. The Maharashtra Legislative Council has 78 seats on that pattern, 66 filled by election and 12 by nomination. Crucially for this question, a Council is a continuous House: it is not subject to dissolution, and one-third of its members retire every second year, each member serving six years. Six States were bicameral at the time this paper was written — Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh — the Jammu and Kashmir Council having been abolished by the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019.

Anniversary questions are cheap to set and hard to guess, and MPSC sets a number of them about the institutions of Maharashtra itself. What makes this one instructive is that the wrong answer is not absurd — it is the anniversary of a different thing. Maharashtra's own golden jubilee in 2010 was a large public occasion, far better remembered than a legislative commemoration of 1987, and a candidate carrying only that memory will pick option (2) confidently. The habit the item rewards is asking what exactly the stem says is fifty years old: a State, a chamber, a statute or a scheme. Institutions that are renamed rather than refounded are where this bites hardest, and Indian public life is full of them — a department becomes a ministry, a board becomes an authority, a province becomes a State — and in every case the anniversary is normally counted from the original foundation, not from the change of name. The second habit worth forming here is to attach a date to a constitutional milestone rather than to a decade: 1935 for the Act, 1937 for its coming into operation and for bicameralism in Bombay, 1 May 1960 for the formation of Maharashtra, 1987 for the Council's fiftieth year. With those four dates written down, this question and several of its variants answer themselves.

• Bicameralism in Bombay Province began under the Government of India Act, 1935, which came into operation for the provinces on 1 April 1937; the Bombay Legislative Council then sat as the upper house, and its first chairman, Mangaldas Pakvasa, took office on 22 July 1937.
• Fifty years from 1937 is 1987, and the House's golden jubilee was reckoned on that basis; a commemorative volume of the period is catalogued as 'Fifty Years of Legislative Council in Maharashtra 1937-87'.
• On 1 May 1960 the State of Bombay was divided and Maharashtra was formed; the same upper chamber continued under the new name, with Vitthal Sakharam Page as the first chairman of the Maharashtra Legislative Council from 11 July 1960. The House was renamed, not created.
• The Maharashtra Legislative Council has 78 seats — 66 elected and 12 nominated by the Governor. It is a continuous House, not subject to dissolution, and one-third of its members retire every second year.
• Article 169 lets Parliament create or abolish a State Legislative Council, but only on a resolution of that State's Legislative Assembly passed by a majority of its total membership and by not less than two-thirds of those present and voting; six States were bicameral when this paper was written — Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh.

• Counting the Council's age from 1 May 1960 because that is when it acquired the name 'Maharashtra Legislative Council'. The House was renamed on reorganisation, not founded; its fifty-year count runs from 1937
• Confusing the golden jubilee of the STATE, celebrated on 1 May 2010, with the golden jubilee of the CHAMBER in 1987 — the commonest way to reach the wrong option here
• Assuming an Indian legislature must date from the Constitution of 1950. The Constitution carried forward chambers that were already sitting under the Government of India Act, 1935
• Treating a Legislative Council as though it were dissolved and re-elected like an Assembly. It is a permanent House with staggered retirement of one-third of its members every second year, which is why it has no single 're-founding' date

Maharashtra's institutions supply MPSC with a steady flow of dated questions, and the Legislature is a favourite subject because so much about it is countable: the strength of each House, the number of nominated members, the term of a member of the Council, the majority needed for a resolution under Article 169, the year of an anniversary. Two shapes recur. The first is the plain anniversary, as here, where the whole difficulty lies in identifying which institution the fifty years belong to. The second is the composition question, which asks how many members come from each of the Council's five electoral channels or who nominates the remainder and on what qualification. Both are defeated by the same preparation — a single page carrying the constitutional articles, the current strengths of the Assembly and the Council, and the four dates that matter in the House's history. Anniversary items also tend to appear in the same paper as the current-affairs block, so a commemoration in the news during the year before the examination is always worth noting with the year of foundation attached.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Maharashtra Legislative Council acquired its present name in 1960. Which of the following best describes what happened to the House in that year ?

  • (a)It was newly created by an Act of Parliament for the new State
  • (b)The existing upper chamber of the Bombay legislature continued under a new name after the State was divided
  • (c)It was revived after having been abolished in 1956
  • (d)It was converted from a nominated body into an elected one

  Answer(b) The existing upper chamber of the Bombay legislature continued under a new name after the State was divided. The Council had sat as the upper house of the Bombay legislature since 1937 under the Government of India Act, 1935, and it is a continuous House that is never dissolved; on 1 May 1960 the State of Bombay was divided and the same chamber carried on as the Maharashtra Legislative Council, with Vitthal Sakharam Page as its first chairman under that name. That is why its fiftieth year is counted from 1937 and fell in 1987, not from 1960.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under Article 169 of the Constitution, the abolition of a State Legislative Council requires which of the following ?

  • (a)A resolution of the State Legislative Assembly passed by a special majority, followed by a law of Parliament
  • (b)A constitutional amendment ratified by half the States
  • (c)A recommendation of the Governor and the assent of the President alone
  • (d)A resolution of the Legislative Council itself, passed by a two-thirds majority

  Answer(a) A resolution of the State Legislative Assembly passed by a special majority, followed by a law of Parliament. Article 169 requires the Assembly of the State to resolve by a majority of the total membership of the House and by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting; Parliament may then create or abolish the Council by law, and such a law is expressly not deemed to be an amendment of the Constitution for the purposes of Article 368. The Council's own consent is not required, which is one reason second chambers in the States have proved easy to abolish.