According to simple majority of the Parliament which types of Constitutional Amendments shall be made ? Choose correct statement/s.
(a) Establishment of new States.
(b) Amendment related to President'

Question

According to simple majority of the Parliament which types of Constitutional Amendments shall be made ? Choose correct statement/s.
(a) Establishment of new States.
(b) Amendment related to President's emoluments and allowances.
(c) Amendment related to Directive Principles to State Policy.
(d) Delimitation of Constituencies.

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — option (3), '(a), (b) and (d)'. The whole question turns on one distinction: which parts of the Constitution can be altered by an ordinary law passed like any other Bill, and which need the machinery of Article 368. Article 368 recognises two amending procedures — a special majority of each House (a majority of the total membership of that House and not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting), and for the genuinely federal provisions that special majority plus ratification by the legislatures of not less than one-half of the States. Alongside these sits a third category that is not mentioned in Article 368 at all. A number of provisions can be changed by Parliament by a simple majority of members present and voting, in the ordinary legislative way, and the Constitution takes care to say that such a change is not an amendment for the purposes of Article 368 at all — Article 4(2) says so for laws that create or reorganise States, and Article 169(3) says so for the abolition or creation of State Legislative Councils. Statement (a) belongs squarely in that third category. Article 2 empowers Parliament to admit into the Union, or establish, new States on such terms and conditions as it thinks fit, and Article 3 lets it form new States and alter the areas, boundaries or names of existing ones. Article 4 then provides that any law under Article 2 or 3 may make the consequential changes to the First and Fourth Schedules, and shall not be deemed an amendment of the Constitution. So new States are made by simple majority. Statement (a) is correct. Statement (b) is correct for the same reason. The President's emoluments and allowances are fixed in the Second Schedule, and Article 59(3) provides that the President is entitled to such emoluments and allowances as are specified in that Schedule until Parliament by law determines otherwise. Because Parliament can determine them by ordinary law, the Second Schedule entries for the President, Governors, Speakers and judges fall in the simple-majority list. Statement (d) is likewise correct: delimitation of constituencies is carried out under a Delimitation Act passed by Parliament in the ordinary way, and is one of the standard items in the simple-majority list. Statement (c) is the false one, and it decides the question by itself. The Directive Principles of State Policy are Part IV of the Constitution, and to change them Parliament must use Article 368 with a special majority. Every option that contains (c) — option (1), option (2) and option (4) — therefore fails, and only option (3) is left standing.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Statement (a) is right but statement (c) is not: the Directive Principles are Part IV of the Constitution and can only be amended under Article 368 by a special majority of each House. Nothing in Part IV can be altered by an ordinary Bill. This option also silently rejects (b) and (d), both of which are genuine simple-majority items, so it fails on three counts.  (b) Delimitation of constituencies in (d) is correctly a simple-majority matter, but pairing it with (c) is fatal — amending the Directive Principles needs the special majority of Article 368. The option additionally drops (a), the creation of new States, which Article 4(2) expressly declares is not an amendment of the Constitution at all and so travels by simple majority.  (d) This is the near-miss designed to catch a candidate who has learnt that States and delimitation are simple-majority items but has not thought about Part IV. Two of its three components, (a) and (d), are right; the inclusion of (c) sinks it. It also leaves out (b), the President's emoluments under the Second Schedule, which Article 59(3) allows Parliament to determine by ordinary law.

Concept: The Indian Constitution is neither flexible like the British constitution nor rigid like the American, and its amendment scheme is the reason. Three routes exist. First, provisions amendable by a simple majority of Parliament in the ordinary legislative way, which are not treated as constitutional amendments at all: admission and establishment of new States and the alteration of their areas, boundaries and names (Articles 2, 3 and 4); creation or abolition of State Legislative Councils (Article 169); the Second Schedule on emoluments and allowances of the President, Governors, Speakers and judges; quorum in Parliament; salaries and allowances of members of Parliament; parliamentary privileges and rules of procedure; use of English in Parliament; the number of puisne judges of the Supreme Court and conferment of further jurisdiction on it; citizenship; elections to Parliament and State legislatures and the delimitation of constituencies; the Union territories; and the Fifth and Sixth Schedules. Second, the Article 368 special majority, which covers most of the Constitution including the Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principles. Third, the special majority plus ratification by at least half the State legislatures, reserved for provisions that touch the federal structure — the election of the President, the extent of Union and State executive power, the Supreme Court and High Courts, the distribution of legislative powers, the Seventh Schedule, representation of States in Parliament, and Article 368 itself.

State PCS 2026 Q82 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2026 Q82 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer