Delhi was called National Capital Territory by which Constitution Amendment Act ?

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Correct — option (2), the 69th Constitutional Amendment Act. The Constitution (Sixty-ninth Amendment) Act, 1991 renamed the Union Territory of Delhi as the National Capital Territory of Delhi and gave it a form of government no other Union Territory then had. It did so by inserting two new articles. Article 239AA created for Delhi a Legislative Assembly of seventy seats filled by direct election, with power to make laws for the whole or any part of the National Capital Territory on matters in the State List and the Concurrent List — except public order, police and land, which were kept with the Union — and a Council of Ministers headed by a Chief Minister to aid and advise the Lieutenant Governor. Article 239AB provided the machinery for the President to suspend that arrangement if the administration of the territory cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of Article 239AA, which is Delhi's equivalent of President's rule. The amendment was brought into force on 1 February 1992 and was accompanied by an ordinary law, the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991, which works out the detail. The crucial point of principle, and the one MPSC is testing, is that the amendment did not make Delhi a state: it remains a Union Territory, with a special status and a legislature of limited competence, which is why the Union Government retains control of the police and of land in the capital.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) The Constitution (Sixty-third Amendment) Act, 1989 has nothing to do with Delhi. It repealed the special provisions that the Fifty-ninth Amendment of 1988 had made for Punjab, which had allowed a proclamation of emergency in that state on the ground of internal disturbance and had extended the permissible duration of President's rule there. It is a Punjab-specific rollback, and it is offered here only because its number sits close to 69 and a candidate who half-remembers 'sixty-something' can be pushed onto it.  (c) The Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act, 2003 tightened the anti-defection law and capped the size of ministries. It limited the Council of Ministers in the Union and in every state to fifteen per cent of the strength of the House, with a floor of twelve ministers in a state, disqualified a defector from holding a ministerial or remunerative political office for the rest of the term, and deleted the provision of the Tenth Schedule that had allowed a split of one-third of a legislature party to escape disqualification. It concerns the composition of governments generally, not the constitutional status of Delhi.  (d) The Constitution (Ninety-third Amendment) Act, 2005 inserted clause (5) into Article 15, enabling the state to make special provision for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes and of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in admission to educational institutions, including private educational institutions whether aided or unaided by the state, but excluding minority institutions covered by Article 30(1). It is the constitutional basis of the reservation regime in higher education upheld in Ashoka Kumar Thakur (2008) — a question of educational reservation, entirely unrelated to the government of the capital.

Concept: Delhi occupies a category of its own in the Indian federal structure and the question turns on knowing why. Under Article 239 a Union Territory is administered by the President acting through an administrator; some Union Territories were given legislatures by ordinary law under Article 239A. Delhi's arrangement is written into the Constitution itself. Following the recommendations of the Balakrishnan Committee, the Sixty-ninth Amendment of 1991 inserted Articles 239AA and 239AB, styled the territory the National Capital Territory of Delhi, and gave it an elected Assembly and a Council of Ministers while reserving public order, police and land to the Union. Two names are constantly confused and it is worth fixing the difference: the National Capital TERRITORY is this constitutional entity, the Union Territory of Delhi under Article 239AA. The National Capital REGION is something else entirely — a statutory planning region covering Delhi together with districts of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, constituted under the National Capital Region Planning Board Act, 1985, and having no constitutional status at all. A related but distinct amendment is the Seventieth, of 1992, which allowed the elected members of the Delhi and Puducherry assemblies to take part in the election of the President.

State PCS 2024 Q82 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q82 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer