The Concurrent list of the Indian Constitution includes :
1. Trade and Commerce
2. Adulteration of Goods
3. Succession
Select the correct answer from the codes given below :

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, 2 and 3. Take the three items one at a time against the actual text of the Seventh Schedule. 'Adulteration of Goods' is Entry 18 of the Concurrent List, which reads 'Adulteration of foodstuffs and other goods' — Concurrent, so item 2 belongs. 'Succession' is Entry 5 of the Concurrent List, the personal-law entry: 'Marriage and divorce; infants and minors; adoption; wills, intestacy and succession; joint family and partition; all matters in respect of which parties in judicial proceedings were immediately before the commencement of this Constitution subject to their personal law' — Concurrent, so item 3 belongs. 'Trade and Commerce', standing bare with no qualifier, does not. Trade and commerce is split across all three lists by geography: 'Trade and commerce within the State' is Entry 26 of the STATE List; 'Trade and commerce with foreign countries; import and export across customs frontiers' is Entry 41 of the Union List and 'Inter-State trade and commerce' is Entry 42; and the Concurrent List's Entry 33 is only a narrow carve-out — trade and commerce in, and the production, supply and distribution of, the products of Union-controlled industries, foodstuffs including edible oilseeds and oils, cattle fodder, raw cotton and raw jute. An unqualified 'Trade and Commerce' therefore reads as the State subject, not the Concurrent one. Items 2 and 3 in, item 1 out — the code is (d).

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Keeps 'Trade and Commerce' and drops 'Adulteration of Goods' — exactly the wrong way round. Adulteration of foodstuffs and other goods is Entry 18 of the Concurrent List and is unambiguously Concurrent; bare trade and commerce is the State List's Entry 26.  (b) The all-inclusive option, and the one that catches candidates who reason from Entry 33 of the Concurrent List without reading it. Entry 33 is not general trade and commerce: it covers trade, production, supply and distribution only in the products of industries the Union has taken control of, foodstuffs including edible oilseeds and oils, cattle fodder, raw cotton and raw jute. General trade and commerce within a State stays with the State under Entry 26 of List II.  (c) The single item it keeps is the one item that does not belong, and it discards the two that do. It would be correct only if adulteration and succession were State or Union subjects, and neither is — both are named in the Concurrent List, at Entries 18 and 5 respectively.

Concept: The Seventh Schedule distributes legislative power in three lists. List I (Union) has the subjects on which only Parliament may legislate, List II (State) those reserved to State legislatures, and List III (Concurrent) those on which both may legislate, with Union law prevailing in the event of repugnancy under Article 254. The Concurrent List holds the subjects where a national standard is desirable but local administration is unavoidable — criminal law and procedure, contracts, evidence, bankruptcy, forests, education, electricity, factories, price control, economic and social planning, and the whole cluster of personal law. Adulteration and succession are classic Concurrent subjects for exactly that reason: purity standards need to be uniform, and personal law needs both a national frame and State-level variation.

State PCS 2024 Q143 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q143 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer