Which of the following Acts converted Unicameral Legislature of Bihar into Bicameral : Bihar Legislative Assembly and Bihar Legislative Council ?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, Government of India Act 1935. The 1935 Act introduced provincial autonomy and, with it, second chambers where none had existed. Six of the eleven British Indian provinces were given a bicameral legislature — Bengal, Bombay, Madras, Bihar, Assam and the United Provinces — each receiving a Legislative Council alongside a Legislative Assembly, while the remaining five stayed single-chambered. Bihar's own record dates the change precisely: the first Bihar Legislative Council was constituted on 22 July 1936 with 30 members, the first Chairman took office on 23 July 1937, and the two Houses held their first joint session on 22 July 1937, as the Act's provincial provisions came into force. Before that, Bihar had a single chamber — the Bihar and Orissa Legislative Council, itself a creature of the earlier reform Acts, whose presiding officers ran from Sir Walton Maude in 1921 to Rajandhari Singh in 1936 and whose line ends exactly when the bicameral legislature begins. The other two Acts did something different in kind. The Government of India Act 1919 introduced dyarchy, dividing provincial subjects into reserved and transferred, and enlarged the provincial legislative councils — but it kept them UNICAMERAL; the bicameralism of 1919 was at the centre, where it created a Council of State and a Legislative Assembly. The Indian Councils Act of 1909, the Morley–Minto reforms, merely expanded the existing councils, admitted a non-official majority in the provinces and introduced separate electorates; it created no second chamber anywhere. Since exactly one Act did what the stem describes, the escape option cannot stand.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) The strongest distractor, because the 1919 Act genuinely did introduce a two-chamber legislature — at the CENTRE, not in the provinces. It created the Council of State as the upper house and the Legislative Assembly as the lower, while provincial legislatures remained single-chambered under dyarchy. Transferring the centre's arrangement to the provinces is the standard error on this question.  (c) The Indian Councils Act 1909, known as the Morley–Minto reforms, enlarged the imperial and provincial legislative councils, allowed a non-official majority in the provincial councils and introduced separate electorates for Muslims. It created no new chamber at all, and its councils remained advisory bodies with no responsible ministry to hold to account.  (d) The escape option is correct only when at least two of the named alternatives are simultaneously true. Bihar's legislature became bicameral once, under one Act, on one set of dates. The 1909 and 1919 Acts each left the province with a single chamber.

Concept: The Government of India Act 1935 was the last and largest of the constitutional statutes of British India, and it is the direct ancestor of the Constitution of India. Its provincial half took effect in 1937 and abolished dyarchy in the provinces, giving them autonomy with ministries responsible to elected legislatures; its federal half, an All-India Federation joining the provinces to the princely States, was never brought into being because the required number of princes did not accede. Its lasting bequest is structural: the three-list division of legislative power between the centre and the units, the office of Governor with discretionary and emergency powers, a Federal Court, and a Reserve Bank. Much of that reappears in 1950 — the Seventh Schedule's Union, State and Concurrent Lists follow the 1935 scheme, and the Instrument of Instructions to Governors becomes the Directive Principles of State Policy.

State PCS 2025 Q17 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q17 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer