MPSC 2021 Prelims Paper-I · Question 83 of 100

Correct — option (3), third. The Third Schedule to the Constitution is headed 'Forms of Oaths or Affirmations', and it carries the exact words that a wide range of constitutional functionaries must repeat before entering office. It contains eight forms: the oath of office and the oath of secrecy for a Minister for the Union; the oath or affirmation of a candidate for election to Parliament and of a sitting member of Parliament; the oath of a Judge of the Supreme Court and of the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India; the oath of office and the oath of secrecy for a Minister for a State; the oath of a candidate for election to a State legislature and of a sitting member; and the oath of a Judge of a High Court. Each of those forms is invoked by an Article elsewhere in the Constitution, which is why the Schedule is described as being 'referred to in' Articles 75(4), 99, 124(6), 148(2), 164(3), 188 and 219 — the Article imposes the duty to take the oath, and the Schedule supplies the text. Two features are worth carrying away. First, every form opens with the swearer's undertaking to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established and to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India; that second phrase was not in the original text and was inserted by the Constitution (Sixteenth Amendment) Act, 1963, which also amended Articles 19, 84 and 173 to allow reasonable restrictions in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India. Second, and much more often examined, several of the highest offices are NOT in this Schedule at all. The President's oath is set out in the body of the Constitution in Article 60, the Governor's in Article 159, and the Vice-President is sworn under Article 69. The Third Schedule covers Ministers, legislators, Judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts, and the Comptroller and Auditor-General — a long list, but a list with conspicuous gaps at the top. The blank in this stem is therefore filled by 'third'.

• (1)tenth — The Tenth Schedule is the anti-defection law. It was added by the Constitution (Fifty-second Amendment) Act, 1985 and provides for the disqualification of a member of Parliament or of a State legislature on the ground of defection — for voluntarily giving up membership of the party on whose ticket he was elected, or for voting or abstaining contrary to the direction of that party without prior permission and without the party condoning it within fifteen days. It also deals with the merger of legislature parties and vests the decision on disqualification in the Chairman or Speaker of the House. The reason this option is placed here is proximity of theme rather than of content: both the Tenth Schedule and the Third are about a legislator's obligations of loyalty, one to the Constitution at the moment of entry and the other to his party thereafter. But no form of oath appears in the Tenth Schedule.
• (2)sixth — The Sixth Schedule contains the provisions as to the administration of tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. It is the source of the autonomous district councils and regional councils in those four States, bodies with their own powers to make laws on land, forests other than reserved forests, village administration, inheritance, marriage and social custom, and with their own village and district councils exercising judicial functions. It should be kept sharply apart from the Fifth Schedule, which governs the administration and control of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes in the other States, works through a Governor's report and a Tribes Advisory Council, and does not create autonomous councils of the Sixth Schedule kind. Neither Schedule has anything to do with oaths; the option is here because a candidate who has memorised only the famous Schedules — seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth — reaches for a low number he cannot place.
• (4)first — The First Schedule is the map of the Union in words. It names the States and the Union territories and describes the extent of each, and it is the Schedule that has to be amended whenever a State is created, renamed or altered — which is why a reorganisation statute such as the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 or the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 amends it. It is a natural first guess for a candidate who has not memorised the sequence, because a beginning-of-the-Constitution feeling attaches both to the roll of States and to the taking of an oath. Fixing the first four Schedules in order kills this distractor for good: first, the States and Union territories; second, the emoluments, allowances and privileges of the President, the Governors, the Speakers and Deputy Speakers, the Judges and the Comptroller and Auditor-General; third, the forms of oaths or affirmations; fourth, the allocation of seats in the Council of States.

The Constitution originally had eight Schedules and now has twelve, and knowing them in order is one of the highest-return pieces of memorisation available in polity. First: the States and the Union territories and their territorial extents. Second: emoluments, allowances and privileges of the President, the Governors, the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House of the People, the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Council of States and their State counterparts, the Judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts, and the Comptroller and Auditor-General. Third: forms of oaths or affirmations. Fourth: allocation of seats in the Council of States among the States and Union territories. Fifth: administration and control of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes. Sixth: administration of tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. Seventh: the Union, State and Concurrent Lists. Eighth: the languages recognised by the Constitution, now twenty-two. Ninth: laws placed beyond challenge on the ground of violating fundamental rights, added by the First Amendment in 1951, and held in I. R. Coelho in 2007 to remain open to review on the basis of the basic structure where the law was inserted after 24 April 1973. Tenth: the anti-defection provisions, added in 1985. Eleventh: twenty-nine subjects for Panchayats, added by the Seventy-third Amendment. Twelfth: eighteen subjects for Municipalities, added by the Seventy-fourth. The last four were all added by amendment, and the years attached to them — 1951, 1985, 1992 and 1992 — are asked as often as the contents.

Schedule questions are pure recall, they cost the Commission almost nothing to set, and they appear in every MPSC paper because they cannot be argued about. That makes them the cheapest marks in the polity section for a prepared candidate and a reliable loss for an unprepared one, since guessing among four Schedule numbers is a one-in-four proposition with a quarter-mark penalty attached. The efficient preparation is not to read about the Schedules but to be able to recite them in order, and then to attach to each the amendment that created or altered it. It is also worth learning the exceptions rather than the rule, because the exceptions are where the harder version of this question lives. Here the exception is that the President, the Vice-President and the Governors do not take their oaths under the Third Schedule but under Articles 60, 69 and 159 respectively — a fact that turns a one-line recall question into a two-step one. The same pattern appears elsewhere: the Ninth Schedule protects laws but no longer absolutely, the Eighth Schedule lists languages but Indian English is not among them, the Seventh Schedule has three Lists but residuary power sits in Article 248 rather than in the Schedule.

• The Third Schedule is headed 'Forms of Oaths or Affirmations' and contains eight forms — oath of office and oath of secrecy for a Union Minister, oath of a candidate for and a member of Parliament, oath of a Judge of the Supreme Court and of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, oath of office and oath of secrecy for a State Minister, oath of a candidate for and a member of a State legislature, and oath of a Judge of a High Court.
• It is referred to in Articles 75(4), 99, 124(6), 148(2), 164(3), 188 and 219; the Article creates the obligation to be sworn and the Schedule supplies the words.
• The President's oath is not in the Third Schedule but in Article 60, the Vice-President is sworn under Article 69 and the Governor's oath is in Article 159 — the standard trap built on this Schedule.
• Every form in the Schedule requires the swearer to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established and to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India; the words about sovereignty and integrity were inserted by the Constitution (Sixteenth Amendment) Act, 1963.
• The Constitution began with eight Schedules and now has twelve: the Ninth was added by the First Amendment in 1951, the Tenth by the Fifty-second Amendment in 1985, and the Eleventh and Twelfth by the Seventy-third and Seventy-fourth Amendments in 1992.

• Assuming the President and the Governors are sworn under the Third Schedule. Their oaths are printed in the body of the Constitution — Article 60 for the President, Article 159 for the Governor — and the Vice-President is sworn under Article 69
• Confusing the Fifth Schedule with the Sixth. The Fifth deals with Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes generally; the Sixth applies only to the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram and creates autonomous councils
• Forgetting that the oath's promise to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India was added later, by the Sixteenth Amendment of 1963, and was not part of the original forms
• Counting the Schedules from memory of the famous ones only. The Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth are recalled easily and the low-numbered ones are not, which is exactly why a Schedule question is usually built on a low number

MPSC asks Schedule questions in three predictable shapes and all three yield to the same page of notes. The first is the direct match, as here — a subject is named and the Schedule number is wanted, or a Schedule number is given and the subject is wanted. The second is the amendment link: which Amendment Act added the Ninth, the Tenth, the Eleventh or the Twelfth Schedule, and in which year. The third is the exception question, which names an office and asks under what provision its holder is sworn or what Schedule governs it, relying on the candidate's assumption that the general rule covers everybody. Because the answer is a bare number or a bare name, no partial credit exists and the negative marking of a quarter of a mark makes a guess a poor trade. Recite the twelve Schedules in order until the sequence is automatic, then learn the four exceptions attached to them, and this whole family of questions becomes free marks.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under which provision of the Constitution does the President of India take the oath of office ?

  • (a)The Third Schedule
  • (b)Article 60
  • (c)Article 75(4)
  • (d)The Second Schedule

  Answer(b) Article 60. The form of the President's oath or affirmation is printed in the body of the Constitution, not in the Third Schedule, and it is administered by the Chief Justice of India or, in his absence, the senior-most Judge of the Supreme Court available. The Third Schedule covers Union and State Ministers, candidates for and members of Parliament and the State legislatures, Judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts, and the Comptroller and Auditor-General; the Vice-President is sworn under Article 69 and a Governor under Article 159.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following pairs of Schedule and subject is correctly matched ?

  • (a)Sixth Schedule — allocation of seats in the Council of States
  • (b)Tenth Schedule — languages recognised by the Constitution
  • (c)Third Schedule — forms of oaths or affirmations
  • (d)First Schedule — emoluments of the President and the Governors

  Answer(c) Third Schedule — forms of oaths or affirmations. The others are all displaced by one: the Sixth Schedule deals with the administration of tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram while the allocation of Rajya Sabha seats is the Fourth; the Tenth Schedule is the anti-defection law while the languages are in the Eighth; and the First Schedule names the States and Union territories while the emoluments of the President, the Governors, the presiding officers, the Judges and the Comptroller and Auditor-General are in the Second.