MPSC 2022 Prelims Paper-I · Question 58 of 100

Correct — option (1), Jayanti Patnaik. The National Commission for Women was set up as a statutory body under the National Commission for Women Act of 1990 and was constituted in January 1992, and Jayanti Patnaik was appointed its first Chairperson, holding the office from 3 February 1992 until 30 January 1995. The three other names in the option set are all genuine Chairpersons of the same Commission, which is what makes the question a test of order rather than of recognition: Dr. V. Mohini Giri held the office from July 1995 to July 1998, Vibha Parthasarathi from January 1999 to January 2002, and Dr. Poornima Advani from January 2002 to January 2005. So the four names in the options are the first four holders of the office, and the question asks only which of them came first. Note also that the options are not printed in chronological order — the first Chairperson is at position (1) but the fourth is at position (2) and the second and third follow at (3) and (4) — so the sequence in which the names appear on the page carries no information at all, and this paper reorders option sets often enough that no candidate should read anything into position. It is worth recording that the paper prints the fourth option as 'Vibha Parthasarthy', while the name is ordinarily written Vibha Parthasarathi; the stem and options here reproduce the paper as printed. The Commission whose first head is being asked about is worth knowing in its own right, because the same body is examined from several angles. It is a statutory body and not a constitutional one, created by an ordinary Act of Parliament rather than by an article of the Constitution, which distinguishes it from bodies such as the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes that have constitutional status. It consists of a Chairperson, five members and a Member-Secretary, all nominated by the Central Government, with the requirement that members be persons of ability, integrity and standing and that some come from among women drawn from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Its mandate is to review the constitutional and legal safeguards provided for women, to recommend remedial legislative measures, to take up the redressal of grievances, and to advise the government on policy matters affecting women; in the discharge of certain of its inquiry functions it has the powers of a civil court. Option (1) is the answer.

• (2)Dr. Poornima Advani — Dr. Poornima Advani did hold the office of Chairperson of the National Commission for Women, but she was the fourth to do so, serving from January 2002 to January 2005 — a decade after the Commission was constituted. She is therefore a correct name attached to the wrong position, which is the standard construction of a 'who was the first' question: every option is a genuine holder of the office and only the ordering separates them. This option occupies the second position in a set whose names are not in chronological order, and a candidate who assumes that such a list must run in sequence and therefore treats the second name as the second Chairperson would be wrong on that count as well. The general defence in this family of questions is to learn office-holders as a short dated list rather than as a set of names, because the Commission asks for the first, occasionally for the incumbent, and sometimes for the one who held office during a particular period.
• (3)Dr. V. Mohini Giri — Dr. V. Mohini Giri was the second Chairperson of the National Commission for Women, holding office from July 1995 to July 1998, immediately after Jayanti Patnaik. She is the most dangerous of the three wrong options precisely because she is the nearest in time to the answer, and a candidate whose memory holds the early years of the Commission as a blur of two names may take her for the first. The way to separate the two is by the date the Commission itself began work: it was constituted at the beginning of 1992 under the Act of 1990, and its first Chairperson took office in February of that year, whereas Dr. Giri's tenure began in the middle of 1995. Anchoring an office-holder question to the year the institution was created is generally more reliable than trying to recall the sequence of names, because the founding year is usually the better-known fact and the first holder must belong to it.
• (4)Vibha Parthasarthy — The person named here, whose name is ordinarily written Vibha Parthasarathi, was the third Chairperson of the National Commission for Women, holding office from January 1999 to January 2002. She is therefore neither the first nor a name that can be eliminated as unconnected with the Commission. The option is also worth noticing for how it is printed: the paper spells the surname 'Parthasarthy', with the letters transposed from the usual form, and this edition contains several such misspellings of personal names in both its columns. A candidate who hesitates over an option because the spelling does not match the form learnt from a textbook is spending time badly; the safe practice is to recognise the person from the name as printed and to decide the question on the facts, since a transliteration is a printing choice and not a clue about whether the option is right.

The National Commission for Women is a statutory body established under the National Commission for Women Act, 1990, and constituted in January 1992 to act as the national machinery for safeguarding the rights and interests of women. It is composed of a Chairperson, five members and a Member-Secretary, all nominated by the Central Government, with a requirement that the membership include women from the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. Its statutory functions are to investigate and examine the safeguards provided for women under the Constitution and other laws, to report to the Central Government on their working and to recommend measures for their effective implementation; to review existing legislation periodically and suggest amendments; to take up cases of violation of women's rights with the appropriate authorities; to look into complaints and to take suo motu notice of matters relating to deprivation of women's rights, non-implementation of laws meant for their protection, or non-compliance with policies aimed at their welfare; to fund litigation involving issues affecting a large body of women; to inspect places of custody where women are kept; and to advise government on planning and evaluation for women's development. In inquiring into complaints it has certain powers of a civil court, including the power to summon witnesses and require the production of documents. The distinction between statutory and constitutional bodies matters for examination purposes: the National Commission for Women owes its existence to an Act of Parliament, whereas the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes are provided for by the Constitution itself, and the State Commissions for Women are created by the corresponding State legislation.

Questions naming the first holder of an office are a fixed feature of MPSC papers, and they appear across the whole range of institutions — the first Chairperson of a national commission, the first Chief Election Commissioner, the first woman judge of a High Court, the first Speaker of a legislature. They are cheap to set and impossible to reason out, so they reward a candidate who has kept a short list and punish one who has not; but the list can be kept short, because it is almost always the first holder and the present holder that are asked, and rarely anyone in between. This particular item is made harder in the standard way, by filling the option set with other genuine holders of the same office so that recognition is useless. Two habits help. The first is to anchor the answer to the founding year of the institution rather than to the sequence of names, since the year is usually the more secure memory. The second is to ignore the order in which options are printed: here the four names appear in the order first, fourth, second, third, and this paper scrambles numerical and chronological option sets in several places, so position carries no information whatever. Institutions concerned with women, children, minorities and the backward classes are examined by MPSC both as static polity and as current affairs, so the founding Act, the composition, the statutory or constitutional status and the current head are all worth holding for each.

• The National Commission for Women was established under the National Commission for Women Act, 1990, and was constituted in January 1992 as a statutory body, not a constitutional one.
• Jayanti Patnaik was its first Chairperson, holding office from 3 February 1992 to 30 January 1995.
• The next three Chairpersons were Dr. V. Mohini Giri from July 1995 to July 1998, Vibha Parthasarathi from January 1999 to January 2002, and Dr. Poornima Advani from January 2002 to January 2005 — so all four options in this question are genuine holders of the office.
• The Commission consists of a Chairperson, five members and a Member-Secretary nominated by the Central Government, and its membership is required to include women from the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.
• Its functions include reviewing the constitutional and legal safeguards for women, recommending amendments to legislation, taking up complaints and suo motu cases, inspecting places where women are held in custody, and advising government on policy; in inquiries it exercises certain powers of a civil court.

• Choosing a later holder of the same office because the name is familiar, when every option in a 'who was first' question is usually a genuine holder
• Assuming that a list of office-holders is printed in chronological order, when this option set runs first, fourth, second and third
• Confusing a statutory commission created by an Act of Parliament with a constitutional commission provided for by the Constitution itself
• Hesitating over an option because a personal name is misspelt, when the spelling is a printing choice and says nothing about whether the option is correct

Questions on national commissions come to MPSC papers in four recognisable shapes: the year and the Act under which the body was set up, its composition, whether it is statutory or constitutional, and who was its first or present head. All four can be prepared together in a few lines for each commission, and doing so is more economical than treating each question type separately. The 'first holder' variant is the one most often missed, because it cannot be reasoned out; the practical answer is to keep a single page listing the first head of each major body alongside the year of its establishment, and to revise it as a unit. Current affairs questions on the same institutions ask about recent appointments and recent reports, so the page should carry the incumbent's name as well, updated as it changes.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The National Commission for Women is best described as which of the following ?

  • (a)A constitutional body established under an article of the Constitution
  • (b)A statutory body established under an Act of Parliament
  • (c)An executive body created by a resolution of the Cabinet
  • (d)A registered non-governmental organisation funded by the Central Government

  Answer(b) A statutory body established under an Act of Parliament — it owes its existence to the National Commission for Women Act, 1990, and was constituted in January 1992. The distinction matters because a statutory body can be altered or abolished by ordinary legislation, whereas a constitutional body such as the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, which is provided for by an article of the Constitution, can be changed only by constitutional amendment.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following is not among the statutory functions of the National Commission for Women ?

  • (a)Reviewing the constitutional and legal safeguards provided for women
  • (b)Recommending amendments to existing legislation affecting women
  • (c)Trying and convicting persons accused of offences against women
  • (d)Inspecting places of custody where women are kept

  Answer(c) Trying and convicting persons accused of offences against women — the Commission is an investigative and advisory body, not a court. It may inquire into complaints and take suo motu notice of matters relating to women's rights, and in doing so it exercises certain powers of a civil court such as summoning witnesses and requiring documents, but the trial and conviction of offenders belongs to the criminal courts alone. The other three are among its statutory functions.