Under which Article of the Indian Constitution the Annual Financial Statement (Budget) is necessary to be laid before the Parliament ?

Question

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Correct — A, Article 112. The Article is headed 'Annual financial statement' and its first clause reads: 'The President shall in respect of every financial year cause to be laid before both the Houses of Parliament a statement of the estimated receipts and expenditure of the Government of India for that year, in this Part referred to as the "annual financial statement".' Two details in that sentence are frequently examined. It is laid before *both* Houses — the Rajya Sabha may discuss the Budget even though it cannot vote the demands for grants. And the laying is done by the President, formally speaking; the Finance Minister presents it on the President's recommendation. The word 'Budget' appears nowhere in the Constitution: annual financial statement is its constitutional name, and the stem puts 'Budget' in brackets precisely because the two are the same document. Article 112 goes on to structure the statement. Clause (2) requires the estimates of expenditure to show separately the sums charged upon the Consolidated Fund of India and the sums for other expenditure, and to distinguish revenue-account expenditure from the rest. Clause (3) then lists what is charged — the President's emoluments, the salaries of the presiding officers of both Houses, debt charges, the salaries and pensions of Supreme Court judges, the pensions of High Court judges, the salary and pension of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and any sums needed to satisfy a court or arbitral award. Every other option on this list is a real, adjacent Article, and each does a different job in the same sequence.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) Article 111 is 'Assent to Bills' and has nothing to do with the Budget as such: when a Bill has been passed by both Houses it is presented to the President, who must declare that he assents or withholds assent, with a proviso allowing him to return a Bill that is not a Money Bill for reconsideration — and if the Houses pass it again, he shall not withhold assent. It sits immediately before the financial Articles in the text, which is the only reason it is here.  (c) Article 114 is the Appropriation Bill — the stage after the demands for grants have been voted, by which the money the House has granted is legally withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund of India. It is the last step in the chain rather than the first: nothing may leave the Fund without an Appropriation Act, but that Act only exists once the statement laid under Article 112 has been through Article 113.  (d) The nearest miss, and worth learning precisely. Article 113 is 'Procedure in Parliament with respect to estimates' — it provides that the estimates relating to expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund 'shall not be submitted to the vote of Parliament, but nothing in this clause shall be construed as preventing the discussion' of them, and it sends the rest to the House of the People as demands for grants. It governs what Parliament does with the statement after it arrives, not the laying of it.

Concept: Parliament's control of public money runs through a fixed chain of Articles, and questions of this type are really asking you to place one link. Article 112 requires the annual financial statement to be laid before both Houses, split between charged and voted expenditure. Article 113 divides the two: charged expenditure may be discussed but not voted, while the rest goes to the Lok Sabha alone as demands for grants, which the House may assent to, refuse, or assent to with a reduction — the last of these being the cut motion. Article 114 turns the voted grants into an Appropriation Bill, without which no money may be withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund. Article 115 covers supplementary, additional and excess grants when the year's estimates prove wrong, and Article 116 provides the vote on account, the vote of credit and the exceptional grant. Article 117 requires the President's recommendation for financial Bills. Behind the whole sequence stands Article 266, which creates the Consolidated Fund itself, and Article 148, which creates the Comptroller and Auditor-General to audit the spending afterwards. The design is that money is estimated, voted, appropriated, spent and then audited — with a different Article for each stage.

State PCS 2025 Q75 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q75 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer