MPSC 2022 Prelims Paper-I · Question 66 of 100

Correct — option (1), statements (a) and (b). Three statements are printed here, (a) to (c), not four, and the first two are accurate while the third is not. Statement (a) is correct: the special provisions for Nagaland are contained in Article 371A, which was inserted by the Constitution (Thirteenth Amendment) Act, 1962, the amendment that accompanied the creation of Nagaland as a State. Statement (b) is correct as well, and it states the most important thing Article 371A does. The article provides that notwithstanding anything in the Constitution, no Act of Parliament in respect of religious or social practices of the Nagas, Naga customary law and procedure, administration of civil and criminal justice involving decisions according to Naga customary law, and ownership and transfer of land and its resources shall apply to the State of Nagaland unless the Legislative Assembly of Nagaland by a resolution so decides. Those four subjects are worth learning as a set, because a question can be built on any of them and because the pattern is repeated with variations in the special provisions made later for Mizoram in Article 371G and for Arunachal Pradesh in Article 371H. The effect is a genuine and unusual limit on Parliament's legislative power: on these four matters a central law does not extend to Nagaland of its own force but only if the State Assembly adopts it, which is the reverse of the ordinary constitutional position under Article 245 and the Union List. Statement (c) is false, and the falsehood is not a small one. Tuensang is not the most developed district of Nagaland; it is one of the least developed, and the Constitution itself records the fact. Article 371A(2) makes special transitional arrangements for Tuensang alone — a regional council of thirty-five members for the district, administration of the district by the Governor in his discretion for ten years from the formation of the State or for such further period as he might specify, control by the Governor over the allocation of money to the district, and a Minister for Tuensang affairs drawn from the members representing that district in the Assembly. A constitution does not put a district under the Governor's personal administration because it is thriving. The classification has been confirmed since: the Ministry of Panchayati Raj listed Tuensang in 2006 among the country's most backward districts, and it draws support under the Backward Regions Grant Fund. Nagaland's capital is Kohima, and its largest and most commercially developed town, with the State's only airport and railhead, is Dimapur — neither of them Tuensang. Because statements (a) and (b) are correct and statement (c) is not, the answer is option (1).

• (2)Only statement (a) is correct — This option accepts statement (a) but rejects statement (b), and statement (b) is correct. Article 371A(1)(a) provides in terms that no Act of Parliament in respect of the religious or social practices of the Nagas shall apply to the State of Nagaland unless the Legislative Assembly of Nagaland by a resolution so decides, and the same protection covers Naga customary law and procedure, the administration of civil and criminal justice where decisions are taken according to Naga customary law, and the ownership and transfer of land and its resources. This is one of the strongest protections given to any State under Part XXI of the Constitution, and it is the provision most often quoted in political debate about Nagaland, since it is the reason that central legislation touching land or customary practice has to be adopted by the State Assembly before it can operate there. An option that treats this as an overstatement is understandable — it sounds too strong to be true — but the text of the article is exactly that strong, and a candidate should read Article 371A once for that reason alone.
• (3)Statements (a) and (c) are correct — This option pairs the correct statement (a) with statement (c), which asserts that Tuensang is the most developed district of Nagaland. It is not, and the assertion is contradicted by the very article the question is about. Article 371A(2) singled Tuensang out for special transitional treatment: a regional council of thirty-five members, administration of the district by the Governor in his discretion for ten years from the formation of the State, the Governor's control over the allocation of moneys provided by the Union for the district, and a Minister for Tuensang affairs appointed from among the members of the Assembly representing that district. These are the arrangements a constitution makes for an area that is administratively remote and economically behind the rest of the State, not for its most advanced part. Independent confirmation is easy to find: the Ministry of Panchayati Raj named Tuensang in 2006 as one of the most backward districts in the country, and it receives assistance under the Backward Regions Grant Fund. Kohima is the capital of Nagaland and Dimapur its largest and most commercially developed town.
• (4)All the statements are correct — This option accepts all three statements, and it therefore accepts statement (c), which is false for the reasons given. The option is worth pausing over as a matter of technique rather than of content. An all of the above option is offered ten times among the four hundred options of this paper, and being offered is not evidence of being right; it is simply the fourth thing the examiner had to print. The proper way to treat it is as a claim about every statement in the list at once, which means it is the easiest option in the set to disprove — a single false statement destroys it. Here, statement (c) does that on its own. The wider lesson for Nagaland is that Article 371A is not a single provision but two quite different ones bolted together: clause (1) gives the whole State a protection against central legislation on four named subjects, and clause (2) gave one district, Tuensang, a set of transitional administrative arrangements because it was the least developed part of the new State. Questions are set on both, and confusing them is easy if the article has only been skimmed.

Part XXI of the Constitution, headed temporary, transitional and special provisions, contains a run of articles from 371 to 371J that give particular States arrangements not available to the rest of the federation, almost always because of a promise made when the State was formed or reorganised. Article 371A, inserted by the Thirteenth Amendment Act of 1962 when Nagaland was created, is the strongest of them. Clause (1) provides that no Act of Parliament shall apply to Nagaland in respect of four matters — the religious or social practices of the Nagas, Naga customary law and procedure, the administration of civil and criminal justice involving decisions according to Naga customary law, and the ownership and transfer of land and its resources — unless the Legislative Assembly of Nagaland by a resolution so decides. The same clause gives the Governor a special responsibility with respect to law and order in the State for so long as internal disturbances arising from hostile activities continue, and requires him to exercise his individual judgment in the matter after consulting the Council of Ministers. Clause (2) dealt with the Tuensang district, which entered the new State in a very different administrative condition from the rest: it provided for a regional council of thirty-five members for the district, for the administration of the district by the Governor for ten years from the formation of the State or such further period as he might specify, for the Governor's control over the allocation of funds to the district, and for a Minister for Tuensang affairs. The companion provisions elsewhere in Part XXI are worth learning alongside it — Article 371 for Maharashtra and Gujarat, with the special responsibility of the Governor for developmental boards including one for Vidarbha, one for Marathwada and one for the rest of Maharashtra; Article 371B for Assam; Article 371C for Manipur; Article 371D and 371E for Andhra Pradesh; Article 371F for Sikkim; Article 371G for Mizoram; Article 371H for Arunachal Pradesh; Article 371I for Goa; and Article 371J for the Hyderabad-Karnataka region.

The special provisions of Part XXI are examined every year in MPSC papers, partly because Article 371 concerns Maharashtra directly and partly because the run of lettered articles is easy to test and hard to guess. The Commission asks them in two ways: match the article to the State, and test whether a candidate knows what a named article actually provides. This question does the second, and it does it with a construction worth recognising — two accurate constitutional statements followed by a third statement that is not about the Constitution at all but about a matter of fact, in this case the level of development of a district. Mixed lists of that kind are common, and they punish a candidate who has read the article but has no geographical sense of the State it applies to. The useful defence is that constitutional special treatment is almost always a signal of disadvantage: when a provision singles out an area for a regional council, for administration by the Governor, or for a development board, that area is the one being helped, not the one doing well. Applying that reading to Article 371A(2) answers statement (c) without any outside knowledge at all, which is exactly the kind of inference a well-prepared candidate should be able to make under time pressure. The same reading works on Article 371's development boards for Vidarbha and Marathwada, which exist because those regions lagged behind western Maharashtra.

• Article 371A, inserted by the Constitution (Thirteenth Amendment) Act, 1962 on the creation of Nagaland, provides that no Act of Parliament shall apply to the State in respect of religious or social practices of the Nagas, Naga customary law and procedure, administration of civil and criminal justice according to Naga customary law, and ownership and transfer of land and its resources, unless the State Legislative Assembly by resolution so decides.
• Article 371A(2) made special provision for the Tuensang district alone — a regional council of thirty-five members, administration of the district by the Governor for ten years from the formation of the State, the Governor's control over the allocation of funds to it, and a Minister for Tuensang affairs.
• Tuensang is one of Nagaland's least developed districts, not its most developed; the Ministry of Panchayati Raj listed it in 2006 among the country's most backward districts and it draws support under the Backward Regions Grant Fund.
• Kohima is the capital of Nagaland and Dimapur is its largest and most commercially developed town; neither distinction belongs to Tuensang.
• Article 371A also gives the Governor of Nagaland a special responsibility for law and order for so long as internal disturbances arising from hostile activities continue, to be exercised in his individual judgment after consulting the Council of Ministers.

• Treating a district singled out for special constitutional treatment as an advanced one; the arrangements for Tuensang under Article 371A(2) exist because it was the least developed part of the new State
• Underestimating the strength of Article 371A(1); a central law on any of the four named subjects genuinely does not apply to Nagaland unless the State Assembly adopts it by resolution
• Mixing up the two halves of Article 371A — clause (1) protects the whole State against certain central legislation, while clause (2) made transitional administrative arrangements for one district
• Accepting an all of the above option because the first statements check out; the option is a claim about every statement at once and a single falsehood destroys it

Part XXI is set in MPSC papers in a small number of shapes. The commonest is matching, either directly as a match-the-columns question or indirectly through a stem that names an article and asks which State it concerns. The second is a statement list of the kind used here, testing what the article provides rather than which State it covers. The third, and the one most often set on Maharashtra, asks about Article 371 and the developmental boards, since that provision applies to the candidate's own State and to the long-standing regional imbalance between western Maharashtra, Vidarbha and Marathwada. Preparation is best organised as a single list running from 371 to 371J, one line each, with the State and the substance of the provision, and with the year and amendment noted where the article was inserted later. Add to it a short note on which north-eastern States are covered by the Sixth Schedule rather than by a lettered article, because the Commission likes to test the boundary between the two systems.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under Article 371A of the Constitution, an Act of Parliament relating to Naga customary law applies to Nagaland only if which of the following happens ?

  • (a)The Governor of Nagaland gives his assent to the Act
  • (b)The Legislative Assembly of Nagaland by a resolution so decides
  • (c)The President issues a notification extending the Act to the State
  • (d)The regional council of the Tuensang district approves the Act

  Answer(b) The Legislative Assembly of Nagaland by a resolution so decides. Article 371A(1)(a) provides that no Act of Parliament in respect of the religious or social practices of the Nagas, Naga customary law and procedure, the administration of civil and criminal justice involving decisions according to Naga customary law, or the ownership and transfer of land and its resources shall apply to Nagaland unless the State Legislative Assembly adopts it by resolution. On those four subjects the ordinary rule that a central law extends of its own force does not operate.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  For which district did Article 371A make special provision including a regional council and administration by the Governor ?

  • (a)Kohima
  • (b)Dimapur
  • (c)Tuensang
  • (d)Mokokchung

  Answer(c) Tuensang. Article 371A(2) provided for a regional council of thirty-five members for the Tuensang district, for the administration of that district by the Governor in his discretion for ten years from the formation of the State or such further period as he might specify, for the Governor's control over the allocation of funds to it, and for a Minister for Tuensang affairs drawn from the members representing the district in the Assembly. Kohima is the State capital and Dimapur its largest commercial town.