Consider the following statements :
(a) Ladakh became a Union Territory on 31st October, 2019.
(b) The Union Territory of Ladakh comprises two districts namely Leh and Kargil.
(c) Umang Narula is the

Question

Consider the following statements :
(a) Ladakh became a Union Territory on 31st October, 2019.
(b) The Union Territory of Ladakh comprises two districts namely Leh and Kargil.
(c) Umang Narula is the Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh.
Which is the incorrect statement ?

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — option (3), statement (c). Read the closing line first, because this question is negative and its negation arrives at the END rather than at the beginning. The stem opens with the neutral words 'Consider the following statements', three statements follow, and only then comes the ask: which is the INCORRECT statement — the word printed in bold in the English column, and अयोग्य in bold in the Marathi. A candidate who reads the opening line, checks the statements for truth and marks the true ones has answered a question the paper did not ask. What is wanted is the single false statement, and it is statement (c). Umang Narula was never the Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh. He is an Indian Administrative Service officer of the 1989 batch who was appointed ADVISOR to the Lieutenant Governor of the Union Territory of Ladakh with effect from 31 October 2019 — a senior civil-service post assisting the Lieutenant Governor, not the constitutional office itself. The first Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh was Radha Krishna Mathur, a retired officer of the 1977 batch who had served as Defence Secretary and then as Chief Information Commissioner until November 2018, and who was sworn in on 31 October 2019; he held the office when this paper was written on 23 January 2022. The other two statements are both true, which is what the answer requires. Statement (a) is correct: the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 took effect on 31 October 2019 and created two Union Territories out of the former State, Jammu and Kashmir with a legislature and Ladakh without one. Statement (b) is also correct: at that time the Union Territory of Ladakh consisted of exactly two districts, Leh and Kargil, both of which had been constituted in 1979; further districts were carved out only years after this paper was written, so the statement was accurate on the day of the examination. With (a) and (b) true and (c) false, the incorrect statement is (c) and the answer is option (3).

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Statement (a) is TRUE, so it cannot be the answer to a question asking for the incorrect statement. Ladakh became a Union Territory on 31 October 2019, the appointed day under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, which Parliament had passed in August 2019 alongside the resolution and the presidential order by which the special provisions of Article 370 were rendered inoperative. The Act divided the former State of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories: Jammu and Kashmir, which has a legislative assembly, and Ladakh, which has none and is administered through its Lieutenant Governor. Choosing this option means either misreading the date or, far more commonly, misreading the ask — treating a true statement as the thing wanted when the closing line asks for the false one.  (b) Statement (b) is also TRUE as at the date of this paper, so it too cannot be the answer. When Ladakh was constituted as a Union Territory on 31 October 2019 it comprised two districts, Leh and Kargil, both formed in 1979, and it still comprised only those two when the paper was written on 23 January 2022; the creation of further districts came later. The option is attractive to a candidate who has read more recent news about Ladakh's administrative divisions and applies it to a paper written in early 2022. That is a general hazard with questions about a fast-changing subject, and the rule is to answer as at the date of the examination: a statement that was accurate then remains the paper's correct statement even if the facts have since moved on.  (d) This option asserts that none of the three statements is incorrect — in other words, that all three are true. It fails because statement (c) is demonstrably false: Umang Narula held the post of Advisor to the Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh from 31 October 2019, while the office of Lieutenant Governor itself was held by Radha Krishna Mathur, who was sworn in as the first holder on the same day. The confusion between the two posts is the whole point of the question, and it is a realistic one, because an Advisor to a Lieutenant Governor is a senior officer whose name appears in news reports about the administration of the territory. It is worth noting that the exact phrase 'None of the above' is printed only once in the English column of this paper, at this question — and only because Q77 and Q79 drop the article and print 'None of above'. The Marathi column writes वरीलपैकी नाही on all three, so for a मराठी reader this option is not distinctive at all; the Commission spells its escape options in many different ways elsewhere, so a candidate should read each one rather than recognising a familiar form.

Concept: The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 is the statute that reorganised the former State. Following the presidential order and the parliamentary resolution of 5 August 2019 by which the special provisions of Article 370 were made inoperative, Parliament passed the Act in August 2019 and appointed 31 October 2019 as the day on which it would take effect. From that day the State ceased to exist and two Union Territories came into being. Jammu and Kashmir is a Union Territory WITH a legislative assembly, on the model of Puducherry, so it has a Council of Ministers and a Chief Minister as well as a Lieutenant Governor. Ladakh is a Union Territory WITHOUT a legislature, administered by the President acting through an administrator designated as Lieutenant Governor under Article 239, with two Autonomous Hill Development Councils, at Leh and at Kargil, providing the elected element of local administration. Ladakh's first Lieutenant Governor was Radha Krishna Mathur, appointed on the day the territory came into existence, and Umang Narula was appointed Advisor to him from the same date. The two districts, Leh and Kargil, were both constituted in 1979, and the territory continued with those two until additional districts were created several years later. The distinction between an office created by the Constitution and a post created to assist its holder is the fact this question is testing, and it recurs across Indian administration — an Adviser to a Governor under President's rule, a Principal Secretary to a Chief Minister, a Chief Adviser to a Lieutenant Governor.

State PCS 2021 Q97 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2021 Q97 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer