Consider the following statements about Central Government:
1) Ministries and Departments are formed by the Prime Minister with consultation of the Cabinet Secretary.
2) Every Minister is allocated Mi

Question

Consider the following statements about Central Government:
1) Ministries and Departments are formed by the Prime Minister with consultation of the Cabinet Secretary.
2) Every Minister is allocated Ministry by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister.
Out of these :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — B, Only 2 is correct. Statement 2 is a plain description of Articles 75 and 77 working together; statement 1 misplaces both the authority and the adviser. Begin with the text. Article 53(1) vests the executive power of the Union in the President. Article 77(1) requires that "All executive action of the Government of India shall be expressed to be taken in the name of the President." And Article 77(3) says in terms that "The President shall make rules for the more convenient transaction of the business of the Government of India, and for the allocation among Ministers of the said business." The rules made under that clause are the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961 and the Government of India (Transaction of Business) Rules, 1961. The First Schedule to the Allocation of Business Rules is the list of every Ministry and Department; the Second Schedule sets out the subjects allotted to each. Creating a new Ministry, splitting one, merging two or renaming a Department is therefore not an informal decision — it is legally an amendment to that First Schedule, ordered by the President on the Prime Minister's advice and notified through the Cabinet Secretariat. Handing a particular Ministry to a particular Minister travels the identical channel, and that is exactly what statement 2 says. Statement 1 goes wrong twice over. The formal authority is the President's, not the Prime Minister's; and the advice that moves the President is the Council of Ministers' under Article 74(1), a Council headed by the Prime Minister — never a civil servant's. The Cabinet Secretary heads the Secretariat that drafts and gazettes the notification, but no Ministry has ever come into existence on his advice. BPSC did not invent this pair either: UPSC Prelims 2009 put the same two statements to candidates and its key was also "2 only".

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Exactly inverted — statement 1 is the false one and statement 2 the true one, so this option is the mirror image of the key. It catches the candidate who knows that the Cabinet Secretariat is the nodal office for the Allocation of Business Rules, 1961 and slides from "the Secretariat issues it" to "the Cabinet Secretary advises it". The Secretariat drafts and gazettes; the President orders; the Prime Minister advises. Under Article 74(1) only the Council of Ministers can tender the advice that binds the President, and the Cabinet Secretary is not a member of it.  (c) The classic wrong mark on a two-statement item. Statement 2 is unimpeachable, and a candidate who checks it, finds it right and stops reading marks "both". But statement 1 fails on the authority and again on the adviser, and one false statement is enough to sink the option. This is BPSC's standard construction: one line lifted more or less from the constitutional text, paired with one line that sounds like an accurate description of how Delhi actually works while naming the wrong office.  (d) Too sweeping — the option a candidate reaches for after deciding that the stem "feels" like a trick and that both lines must therefore be planted. Statement 2 is settled law: Article 75(1) has the President appoint Ministers on the Prime Minister's advice, and Article 77(3) has the President allocate the business of Government among them. Rejecting statement 2 means rejecting the Allocation of Business Rules, 1961, under which every portfolio in every Union government since has been assigned.

Concept: The Union executive runs on a legal form that never quite matches the political reality, and this question tests whether you know the form. Article 53(1) vests the executive power of the Union in the President, to be exercised by him either directly or through officers subordinate to him in accordance with the Constitution. Article 74(1) then supplies the machine that actually decides: a Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister at its head "to aid and advise the President who shall, in the exercise of his functions, act in accordance with such advice" — words made binding by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976, with the Forty-fourth Amendment, 1978 adding only a power to require the Council to reconsider its advice once. Article 75(1) has the President appoint the Prime Minister, and the other Ministers on the Prime Minister's advice; Article 75(1A), inserted by the Ninety-first Amendment, 2003, caps the Council at fifteen per cent of the strength of the House of the People. Article 77 completes the picture — 77(1) every executive act is expressed in the President's name, 77(2) an order authenticated as the rules prescribe cannot be challenged on the ground that it is not an order made by the President, and 77(3) the President makes the rules that both distribute Government business among Ministers and prescribe how it is transacted. Two 1961 instruments flow from clause (3): the Allocation of Business Rules, which list every Ministry and Department in a First Schedule and the subjects each owns in a Second Schedule, and the Transaction of Business Rules, which govern how a case is disposed of — which classes must go to the Cabinet, and which a Minister may decide alone.

State PCS 2025 Q61 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q61 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer