SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 10 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 10 of 100

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 6 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

As of March 2023, how many High Courts are there in India?

(a)20
(b)35
(c)25
(d)30

Answer

Why

Correct — C. India has 25 High Courts. The count reached 25 on 1 January 2019, when the High Court common to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana was split into two separate courts, taking the number from 24 to 25.

Nothing has changed since, so 25 is right for March 2023, the date the question fixes. The three courts created immediately before that were Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura, all established in 2013 out of the Gauhati High Court's jurisdiction. That makes option (c) the answer.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
20 — 20 matches no period in the record. The number stood at 21 from 2000, when Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand got their courts, until the three north-eastern courts of 2013 took it to 24.
(b)
35 — 35 is a states-and-union-territories kind of number, not a judicial one. High Courts do not map one to one onto states — several serve more than one state or union territory.
(d)
30 — 30 overshoots. A new High Court is created by an Act of Parliament and additions are rare: three in 2013 and one in 2019 across the last two decades.

Concept

High Courts are constitutional courts under Article 214, which provides a High Court for each state. Article 231 then lets Parliament establish a common High Court for two or more states or union territories — which is why the count is not the number of states.

Jurisdiction, not location, is what defines a High Court. The Bombay High Court covers Maharashtra and Goa along with Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, and the Gauhati High Court covers Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh after the 2013 split.

The question dates itself — 'as of March 2023' — because this number can change. Answer for the date printed on the paper, not for whatever the count is when you read the question.

Key facts

India has 25 High Courts, a count reached on 1 January 2019.
Article 214 provides a High Court for each state, and Article 231 allows a common High Court for two or more states or union territories.
The High Courts of Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura were established in 2013.
The Gauhati High Court has jurisdiction over Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh.

Study next

Articles 214 to 231 on High Courts, including the writ jurisdiction under Article 226High Courts whose jurisdiction covers more than one state or union territoryAppointment, transfer and removal of High Court judges under Article 217

Common traps

Counting one High Court per state and arriving at a number near 28 or 30.
Forgetting that Andhra Pradesh and Telangana shared a single High Court until 2019.

A judiciary count here, a judiciary article number at General Awareness Q.8, where this shift asks which article empowers the President to appoint Supreme Court judges.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.