Consider the following subjects belonging to different lists of the constitution of India. Which of the following subjects belong to concurrent list?
1) Protection of wildlife
2) Income on Agriculture

Question

Consider the following subjects belonging to different lists of the constitution of India. Which of the following subjects belong to concurrent list?
1) Protection of wildlife
2) Income on Agriculture
3) Tax on Electricity consumption or sale
4) Price control
Out of these :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, 1 and 4 are correct. Take the four subjects one at a time against the Seventh Schedule as it now stands. Statement 1, protection of wildlife, is Concurrent List Entry 17B, printed in the Constitution as 'Protection of wild animals and birds.' It was not there originally: Entries 11A, 17A, 17B and 20A were inserted into the Concurrent List by section 57 of the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976, with effect from 3 January 1977, and the same section simultaneously omitted Entries 19 and 20 of the State List — which were Forests and Protection of wild animals and birds. So wildlife did not become a shared subject; it was moved, out of the States' exclusive domain and into the shared one. Statement 4, price control, is Concurrent List Entry 34, which reads simply 'Price control.' — an original entry, unamended, and the shortest entry in the list. That is two Concurrent items, which already points to option (a); the other two confirm it. Statement 2, income on agriculture, is State List Entry 46, 'Taxes on agricultural income.' Its mirror sits in Union List Entry 82, 'Taxes on income other than agricultural income.' — the Union's power over income tax is defined by carving agricultural income out of it, and Article 366(1) supplies the definition. Statement 3, tax on electricity consumption or sale, is State List Entry 53, 'Taxes on the consumption or sale of electricity.' This is the finest cut in the question, and it is deliberate: 'Electricity' by itself is Concurrent List Entry 38, but the tax on consuming or selling it is a State head. A candidate who recalls only that electricity is a Concurrent subject will mark statement 3 correct and land on option (b). Entry 53 also survived the Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016, which restructured the State List's tax entries for GST — it omitted Entries 52 and 55 and substituted Entry 54, but left electricity duty untouched as a State levy. So the Concurrent pair is 1 and 4, and the State pair is 2 and 3.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) The exact mirror image of the truth, and the strongest distractor because it has a pattern behind it: statements 2 and 3 are the two items phrased as taxes, so they cluster naturally in the mind. But both are State List heads — Entry 46 'Taxes on agricultural income' and Entry 53 'Taxes on the consumption or sale of electricity.' Choosing this option means calling the two exclusively State entries the Concurrent ones.  (c) Right about price control, wrong to drop wildlife — and the error has a real historical basis, which is what makes it dangerous. Until 3 January 1977 protection of wild animals and birds genuinely was a State subject, Entry 20 of the State List. A candidate revising from pre-42nd Amendment logic, or from the assumption that wildlife is a forest-department matter and therefore a State one, will stop at statement 4 alone.  (d) The weakest option on the paper, because taxation of agricultural income is the single most famous example of an exclusively State head — Entry 46 of the State List, defined by its exclusion from Union List Entry 82. Picking it requires believing that the one item unambiguously reserved to the States is the Concurrent one, while rejecting both entries the Schedule actually places in List III.

Concept: The Seventh Schedule is the operative text of Indian federalism, and Article 246 is the switch that reads it: Parliament has exclusive power over List I, the State legislatures have exclusive power over List II, and both may legislate on List III. As originally enacted the Union List carried 97 entries, the State List 66 and the Concurrent List 47, and the original numbering has been preserved ever since — which is why you meet inserted entries like 11A, 17A, 17B and 20A, and seven blank omitted entries in the State List — 11 (Education), 19 (Forests), 20 (protection of wild animals and birds) and 29 (spread of infectious disease between States), all dropped by the Forty-second Amendment; 36 (weights and measures), dropped by the Seventh Amendment of 1956; and 52 and 55, dropped by the One Hundred and First Amendment for GST. Two structural rules make the Schedule navigable. First, concurrency is not equality: under Article 254 a State law repugnant to a Union law on a Concurrent subject is void to the extent of the repugnancy, unless the State law was reserved for the President's consideration and received his assent — and even then Parliament may legislate afresh and override it. Second, taxation is treated as a separate species of entry. The framers kept general heads of taxation out of the Concurrent List altogether to avoid concurrent taxing powers and the double taxation they invite; List III's only fiscal entries are narrow ones on recovery of claims (43), stamp duties other than rates of stamp duty (44) and fees (47). Whatever is left over falls to the Union under Article 248 read with Union List Entry 97, the residuary power.

State PCS 2025 Q58 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q58 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer