Which one of the following pairs is not correctly matched ?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, Altering the name of a State – Power of a State Legislature. The power to rename a State belongs to Parliament, not to the State's own Legislature. Article 3 lists five things Parliament may do by law: form a new State, increase the area of any State, diminish the area of any State, alter the boundaries of any State, and alter the name of any State. Renaming is clause (e) of that list, sitting in the same sentence and governed by the same procedure as forming a new State in clause (a). The State Legislature's role is consultative only: the proviso to Article 3 requires that such a Bill be introduced in either House only on the recommendation of the President, and only after the President has referred it to the Legislature of the affected State for expressing its views within the period he specifies. Those views do not bind Parliament, which may accept them, modify the Bill or ignore them altogether — and if the State says nothing within the period, Parliament proceeds anyway. So the option hands the power to the wrong authority and is the pair that is not correctly matched. Two further points make the rule stick. First, Article 4 provides that a law under Article 2 or Article 3, including the consequential changes it makes to the First and Fourth Schedules, shall not be deemed to be an amendment of the Constitution under Article 368 — a simple majority of Parliament suffices to redraw or rename a State. Second, the record bears it out: Madras became Tamil Nadu in 1969, Mysore became Karnataka in 1973, Uttaranchal became Uttarakhand under an Act of 2006 and Orissa became Odisha under an Act of 2011, and each of those was an Act of Parliament. The counter-example is just as instructive. The West Bengal Legislative Assembly resolved in August 2016 to rename the State 'Bengal' in English and 'Bangla' in Bengali; the Union Government declined the proposal, and as of 2026 the State's name is unchanged — because an Assembly resolution is a request, and only Parliament can enact the change.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Correctly matched, so it cannot be the answer. Article 14 reads: 'The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.' The operative noun is 'person', not 'citizen', so the guarantee extends to foreigners on Indian soil and has been read to cover legal persons such as companies and corporations. The Article in fact contains two ideas of different ancestry — equality before the law, the British and Diceyan notion of the absence of special privilege, which is a negative concept; and the equal protection of the laws, the American notion of like treatment in like circumstances, which is positive. Both are available to any person.  (b) Correctly matched. Article 16(1) reads: 'There shall be equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters relating to employment or appointment to any office under the State.' The contrast with Article 14's 'person' is deliberate drafting, and it is one of the most reliably examined distinctions in Part III: Articles 15, 16, 19, 29 and 30 are available to citizens only, while Articles 14, 20, 21, 22, 25 and 27 are available to any person. Article 16(2) then adds that no citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, residence or any of them, be ineligible for or discriminated against in respect of any such employment or office.  (c) Correctly matched, and it is the pair that exposes option (d). Article 3(a) empowers Parliament by law to 'form a new State by separation of territory from any State or by uniting two or more States or parts of States or by uniting any territory to a part of any State'. Telangana, created by the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, is the most recent new State, and the reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union territories in 2019 was carried out by the same parliamentary route. Because forming a State and renaming one are two limbs of the same Article, a candidate who accepts (c) is logically bound to reject (d).

Concept: Two different parts of the Constitution are being tested in one question. The first is who holds which right. Article 14 guarantees equality before the law and the equal protection of the laws to 'any person', so it reaches non-citizens and legal persons; Article 16 guarantees equality of opportunity in public employment to 'citizens' only. The Constitution's choice of noun is the whole answer, and no further reasoning is required. The second is the territorial structure of the Union. Article 1 describes India as a 'Union of States'. Article 2 lets Parliament admit into the Union, or establish, new States — territory that is not already part of India. Article 3 lets Parliament reorganise what is already inside: form a new State out of existing territory, increase or diminish a State's area, alter its boundaries, or alter its name. Article 4 then provides that such a law is not an amendment under Article 368, so it passes by simple majority even though it rewrites the First Schedule.

State PCS 2024 Q101 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q101 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer