MPSC 2022 Prelims Paper-I · Question 59 of 100

Correct — option (4), Article 169. The article is headed 'Abolition or creation of Legislative Councils in States', and it sets out a two-stage procedure that is worth learning as a whole because the Commission tests both stages. The first stage belongs to the State. The Legislative Assembly of the State must pass a resolution asking either for the abolition of its Legislative Council, where one exists, or for the creation of one, where it does not, and the resolution must be carried by a special majority — a majority of the total membership of the Assembly and a majority of not less than two thirds of the members present and voting. The second stage belongs to Parliament. Once such a resolution has been passed, Parliament may by law provide for the abolition or the creation, and only Parliament can do so; the Assembly's resolution is a request that opens the door and not the act that changes the position. Parliament is not obliged to act on the resolution, and resolutions have in fact lain without a corresponding law being made, so a State that has asked for a second chamber does not thereby have one. The article contains a third provision that is examined almost as often as the procedure itself: a law made under it, although it necessarily alters the Constitution's own description of that State's legislature, is expressly not to be deemed an amendment of the Constitution for the purposes of Article 368, which means it is passed by the ordinary legislative process and by a simple majority rather than by the special majority an amendment would require. The reason for this design is the federal one that runs through the whole of Part VI: whether a State should have a second chamber is treated as a matter for the State to decide, but the composition of a State legislature is a constitutional matter and so the change must be effected by the national Parliament. The result is that the number of States with Legislative Councils has moved up and down over time, and Andhra Pradesh is the standard illustration, its Council having been abolished and then revived years later, each step requiring an Assembly resolution followed by an Act of Parliament. At the date of this paper six States had Legislative Councils — Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh — and Maharashtra is one of them, its Vidhan Parishad sitting alongside the Vidhan Sabha, which makes this a question of direct interest to a candidate for the State services. Option (4) is the answer.

• (1)Article 168 — Article 168 is the immediate neighbour of the right answer and is therefore the most attractive wrong option, especially for a candidate who remembers that the subject lies somewhere in the late one-hundred-and-sixties. It is headed 'Constitution of Legislatures in States' and it does the different work of declaring what a State legislature consists of: for every State there shall be a Legislature consisting of the Governor and either one House or two, and the article names the States that have two. It is therefore the article that records the existing position, while Article 169 is the article that provides the machinery for changing it. The pairing is a useful one to hold, because the Commission likes to set neighbouring articles against each other in an option set, and the distinction here — one article describes the arrangement, the next provides for altering it — is exactly the kind of difference that decides such questions.
• (2)Article 167 — Article 167 has nothing to do with second chambers. It deals with the duties of the Chief Minister in respect of furnishing information to the Governor, requiring the Chief Minister to communicate to the Governor all decisions of the Council of Ministers relating to the administration of the State and proposals for legislation, to furnish such information relating to administration as the Governor may call for, and to submit for the consideration of the Council of Ministers any matter on which a decision has been taken by a Minister but which the Council has not considered, if the Governor so requires. It is in other words an article about the relationship between the political executive and the constitutional head of the State, and it belongs to the chapter on the State executive rather than to the chapter on the State legislature. It is worth learning in its own right, since the Commission asks it directly, and its Union counterpart in Article 78 imposes the same duties on the Prime Minister towards the President.
• (3)Article 166 — Article 166 concerns the conduct of the business of the Government of a State. It provides that all executive action of the Government of a State shall be expressed to be taken in the name of the Governor, that orders and instruments so made shall be authenticated in the manner prescribed by rules made by the Governor, and that the Governor shall make rules for the more convenient transaction of the business of the Government and for its allocation among Ministers. Like Article 167 it belongs to the State executive and not to the State legislature, and it has no bearing on Legislative Councils. Its Union counterpart is Article 77, which makes identical provision for the business of the Government of India in the name of the President. A candidate who can place the run of articles by chapter — the State executive in the one-hundred-and-fifties and one-hundred-and-sixties, the State legislature from Article 168 onwards — can eliminate both this option and the previous one without recalling either article's contents.

Part VI of the Constitution governs the States, and within it the chapter on the State legislature begins at Article 168, which provides that every State shall have a Legislature consisting of the Governor and one or two Houses. Where there are two, the lower is the Legislative Assembly, or Vidhan Sabha, whose members are directly elected from territorial constituencies and which alone can bring down a government and alone controls money bills, and the upper is the Legislative Council, or Vidhan Parishad, which is a permanent body not subject to dissolution, one third of whose members retire every second year. Article 169 supplies the machinery for adding or removing a Council, on a special-majority resolution of the Assembly followed by an Act of Parliament, and expressly provides that such an Act is not an amendment of the Constitution for the purposes of Article 368. Article 171 fixes the Council's size and composition: its total strength may not exceed one third of the strength of the Assembly and may not be less than forty, and its members come from five sources — one third elected by electorates of local authorities, one twelfth by graduates of three years' standing, one twelfth by teachers of at least secondary level and three years' standing, one third by the members of the Legislative Assembly from persons who are not themselves members of it, and the remainder nominated by the Governor from persons having special knowledge or practical experience in literature, science, art, the cooperative movement and social service. The Council's powers are deliberately weaker than the Assembly's: it can delay an ordinary bill but not defeat it, and in respect of money bills it can only make recommendations which the Assembly may reject.

Article numbers are asked directly and often in MPSC polity questions, and this item is the standard form: a provision is described in the stem and four adjacent numbers are offered. Learning individual numbers in isolation does not survive examination pressure, but learning the blocks does. Part VI runs in a fixed order — the Governor and the State executive through the one-hundred-and-fifties and one-hundred-and-sixties, the State legislature from Article 168, the composition of the Assembly and the Council at Articles 170 and 171, the officers of the Houses, the legislative procedure, the Governor's powers of assent and ordinance, and then the High Courts — and a candidate who has that skeleton can place a described provision within two or three articles and then choose between the near neighbours on the strength of what each one says. The subject matter of this particular article carries a further reason for a Maharashtra candidate to know it well: Maharashtra is one of the small number of States that maintain a Legislative Council, so the composition of the Vidhan Parishad, the manner in which its members are chosen and the extent of its powers are all live questions in the State services examination rather than abstract ones.

• Article 169 empowers Parliament to abolish an existing Legislative Council in a State or to create one where none exists, but only after the Legislative Assembly of the State has passed a resolution to that effect.
• The Assembly's resolution must be passed 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.
• A law made under Article 169 is expressly not deemed to be an amendment of the Constitution for the purposes of Article 368, so it is passed by the ordinary legislative process; and Parliament is not obliged to act on the State's resolution.
• Article 168 provides that every State shall have a Legislature consisting of the Governor and one or two Houses, and Article 171 fixes the size and composition of a Legislative Council, whose strength may not exceed one third of the Assembly's and may not be less than forty.
• At the date of this paper six States had Legislative Councils — Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh — Maharashtra's being the Vidhan Parishad, which sits alongside the Vidhan Sabha.

• Choosing Article 168 because it stands next to the right answer, when it describes what a State legislature consists of rather than how a Council is created or abolished
• Assuming that a resolution of the State Assembly is by itself sufficient to abolish or create a Council, when an Act of Parliament is required and Parliament may decline to make one
• Treating a law made under Article 169 as a constitutional amendment requiring a special majority in Parliament, when the article expressly provides otherwise
• Confusing the State executive articles in the one-hundred-and-sixties with the State legislature articles that begin at Article 168, which is what puts Articles 166 and 167 into this option set

Article-number questions are among the most common in the MPSC polity section, and they are set in two directions — a provision described and the number wanted, or a number given and the provision wanted. The option sets are almost always adjacent numbers, so the question tests placement within a block rather than isolated recall, and the productive preparation is to learn Part VI, Part V and Part III as ordered sequences with a phrase attached to each article. Legislative Councils attract a second family of questions about their composition, their weaker powers and the States that have them, and because that list changes over time it is also a current affairs subject: the creation or abolition of a Council in any State is precisely the kind of development the Commission converts into a question in the following year's paper. For a Maharashtra candidate the State's own bicameral legislature makes the whole topic doubly worth preparing.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A law made by Parliament under Article 169 for the creation or abolition of a State Legislative Council is

  • (a)deemed to be an amendment of the Constitution and requires a special majority in each House
  • (b)not deemed to be an amendment of the Constitution for the purposes of Article 368
  • (c)required to be ratified by not less than half the State legislatures
  • (d)required to receive the prior assent of the Governor of the State concerned

  Answer(b) Not deemed to be an amendment of the Constitution for the purposes of Article 368 — the article says so expressly, with the consequence that such a law is passed by the ordinary legislative procedure and by a simple majority, even though it changes the description of that State's legislature. No ratification by other State legislatures is involved, and the Governor's assent is not a precondition; what is required first is a resolution of the State's own Legislative Assembly passed by a special majority.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under Article 171, the total strength of a State Legislative Council shall not exceed which of the following ?

  • (a)One half of the total strength of the Legislative Assembly of that State
  • (b)One third of the total strength of the Legislative Assembly of that State
  • (c)One quarter of the total strength of the Legislative Assembly of that State
  • (d)The total strength of the Legislative Assembly of that State

  Answer(b) One third of the total strength of the Legislative Assembly of that State — and the article also lays down a floor, providing that the strength of a Council shall in no case be less than forty. The upper chamber is thus kept deliberately smaller than the directly elected House, which is one of several features by which the Constitution makes the Legislative Council the weaker of the two Houses.