Which of the following Constitutional Amendment in India has decided the maximum strength of the Council of Minister with Chief Minister in a State ?

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Correct — B, 91st Constitutional Amendment. The Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act, 2003, which came into force on 1 January 2004, inserted Article 164(1A). That clause provides that the total number of Ministers, including the Chief Minister, in the Council of Ministers of a State shall not exceed FIFTEEN PER CENT of the total number of members of that State's Legislative Assembly, subject to a floor: the number shall not be less than twelve. States whose ministries exceeded the new ceiling on the day the amendment commenced were given six months to come into conformity. The same amendment inserted the parallel Article 75(1A) for the Union, capping the Council of Ministers including the Prime Minister at fifteen per cent of the strength of the House of the People. Work the arithmetic for Bihar and the provision stops being abstract: the Bihar Legislative Assembly has 243 members, fifteen per cent of 243 is 36.45, so Bihar may have at most 36 Ministers including the Chief Minister. For the Union, fifteen per cent of the Lok Sabha's 543 elected members is 81.45, giving a ceiling of 81. The 91st Amendment was not a stand-alone size cap; it was an anti-defection package passed because the Tenth Schedule of 1985 had failed. Alongside the two ceilings it inserted Articles 75(1B) and 164(1B), disqualifying a member who has been disqualified for defection from being appointed a Minister for the rest of that term; it inserted Article 361B, barring such a person from any remunerative political post; and it amended the Tenth Schedule to delete the exemption for a 'split' by one-third of a legislature party, leaving only a merger by two-thirds protected. The oversized 'jumbo' ministry and the one-third split were the two instruments by which defection had been bought, and the amendment closed both at once.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) A reservation amendment, not a ministry one. The Constitution (Eighty-first Amendment) Act, in force from 9 June 2000, amended Article 16 to permit the government to treat the backlog of unfilled reserved vacancies as a separate and distinct class of vacancies to which the fifty per cent ceiling does not apply. It has nothing to do with Councils of Ministers.  (c) The education amendment. The Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2002 inserted Article 21A making free and compulsory education for children aged six to fourteen a fundamental right, substituted Article 45 to cover early childhood care below six, and added Article 51A(k), the fundamental duty of a parent or guardian to provide education opportunities to a child aged six to fourteen.  (d) Available only if all three named amendments fail, and the 91st does not fail — Article 164(1A) is exactly the provision the stem describes. Note the printed phrasing of this option, 'None of the above Amendment', which is the Commission's own and is reproduced as it appears on the booklet.

Concept: The Council of Ministers is a creature of Articles 74 and 75 at the Union and Article 163 and 164 in a State. Article 164(1) says the Chief Minister is appointed by the Governor and the other Ministers are appointed by the Governor on the Chief Minister's advice; Article 164(2) makes the Council collectively responsible to the Legislative Assembly; Article 164(4) allows a Minister who is not a member of either House to hold office for six consecutive months only. Until 2003 nothing in the Constitution limited how many Ministers there could be, and the gap was exploited: expanding a ministry, or promising a berth, became a standard price for a defection, and 'jumbo' ministries drew repeated criticism from the Sarkaria Commission and the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution. The 91st Amendment closed the gap by writing the cap into the Constitution itself rather than leaving it to convention. Article 164(1A) is one of the few places where the Constitution puts a hard number on the executive.

State PCS 2025 Q43 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q43 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer