NDA (I) 2017 General Ability Test · Question 112 of 149

Correct — B, 4 3 1 2. Take the four amendments one at a time. The 52nd Amendment of 1985 added the Tenth Schedule and disqualified legislators who defect from the party on whose ticket they were elected, so A goes with 4. The 73rd Amendment of 1992 inserted Part IX and the Eleventh Schedule and gave panchayats constitutional status, so B goes with 3. The 61st Amendment of 1988 changed Article 326 and brought the voting age down from twenty-one to eighteen, so C goes with 1. The 86th Amendment made education a fundamental right by inserting Article 21A, so D goes with 2. Reading down the code that is 4, 3, 1, 2.

• (a)4 1 3 2 — It opens correctly with the anti-defection pairing and closes correctly with the right to education, but it swaps the middle two — sending the 73rd Amendment to the voting age and the 61st to panchayati raj. Panchayats came in 1992 with the 73rd, and the voting age fell in 1988 with the 61st.
• (c)2 3 1 4 — It gets the two middle pairings right but exchanges the outer ones, crediting the 52nd Amendment with the right to education and the 86th with anti-defection. The 52nd is the anti-defection amendment of 1985, long before any right to education was written into Part III.
• (d)2 1 3 4 — Only the third pairing survives here, and even that is misplaced — it hands the 52nd the right to education, the 73rd the voting age, the 61st panchayati raj and the 86th anti-defection. Three of the four are wrong, which the anti-defection anchor alone is enough to expose.

Amendments are the dated milestones of Indian constitutional history, and a handful recur in every examination. The 52nd of 1985 created the anti-defection regime in the Tenth Schedule. The 61st of 1988 lowered the voting age to eighteen. The 73rd and 74th of 1992 built the third tier of government, panchayats in Part IX with the Eleventh Schedule and municipalities in Part IX-A with the Twelfth. The 86th made free and compulsory education for children aged six to fourteen a fundamental right under Article 21A, recast Article 45 to cover children below six and added a matching fundamental duty for parents.

One honest correction belongs here. The printed stem dates the 86th Amendment to 2006, but the Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act received assent on 12 December 2002; Article 21A was brought into force only on 1 April 2010, along with the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009. So neither 2006 nor any amendment of that year matches the subject, and the year in the paper is simply a slip. It does not change the answer, because the pairing is decided by the subject and not by the date — and that is the practical lesson. In a match-list of this kind, anchor on the pairing you are surest of, here the 52nd with defection, and use it to knock out whole options at once.

• The 52nd Amendment Act, 1985 added the Tenth Schedule and made defection a ground for disqualification.
• The 61st Amendment Act, 1988 amended Article 326 to reduce the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen.
• The 73rd Amendment Act, 1992 inserted Part IX and the Eleventh Schedule, which lists twenty-nine subjects for panchayats; it came into force on 24 April 1993.
• The 86th Amendment Act, 2002 inserted Article 21A; the right became operative on 1 April 2010 with the RTE Act, 2009.

• Swapping the 73rd and the 74th; the 73rd is for panchayats and the 74th for municipalities.
• Dating the right to education to the year the RTE Act came into force rather than to the amendment itself.
• Working a match-list pair by pair from the top instead of using the one pairing you are certain of to cut options.

NDA asks which amendment did what, or matches amendment numbers to their subjects, and sometimes asks which schedule holds a given provision.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The anti-defection provisions of the Constitution of India are contained in the

  • (a)Fifth Schedule
  • (b)Eighth Schedule
  • (c)Tenth Schedule
  • (d)Twelfth Schedule

  Answer(c) Tenth Schedule — added by the 52nd Amendment Act, 1985, it lays down when a legislator is disqualified for defection.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Panchayats were given constitutional status by which one of the following amendments?

  • (a)61st Amendment Act
  • (b)73rd Amendment Act
  • (c)74th Amendment Act
  • (d)86th Amendment Act

  Answer(b) 73rd Amendment Act — it inserted Part IX and the Eleventh Schedule in 1992; the 74th did the same for urban local bodies.