UPPSC 2022 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 146 of 150

Correct — A, I, III, IV, II. Walk the Constitution from the front and the four subjects fall out in a fixed order. After the Preamble comes Part I, 'The Union and its Territory' (Articles 1-4) — that is item I, and it opens the text. Part II is 'Citizenship' (Articles 5-11) — item III. Part III is 'Fundamental Rights' (Articles 12-35), which the question does not list. Part IV is 'Directive Principles of State Policy' (Articles 36-51) — item IV. And Part IVA, 'Fundamental Duties' (Article 51A), comes after that — item II. So the sequence is I, III, IV, II, which is what the key marks. The single point the item is really testing is that Fundamental Duties come last of the four, and the reason is historical: Part IVA was not in the Constitution as adopted in 1950 at all. It was inserted by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976, on the recommendation of the Swaran Singh Committee, and was fitted in immediately after the Directive Principles — hence the number IVA rather than a fresh Part number.

• (b)IV, II, III, I — This is the correct order read backwards in spirit — it opens with the Directive Principles and closes with the Union and its Territory. Part I is literally the first Part of the Constitution, so any sequence that does not begin with 'The Union and its Territory' is wrong on its first term.
• (c)II, IV, I, III — It starts with Fundamental Duties, which is the one item of the four that cannot come first — Part IVA was inserted by the 42nd Amendment in 1976 and sits after the Directive Principles. It then puts Citizenship last, though Citizenship is Part II, the second Part in the book.
• (d)III, I, II, IV — The near miss. It gets Fundamental Duties ahead of the Directive Principles, reversing Part IV and Part IVA, and it begins with Citizenship rather than with the Union and its Territory — swapping the first two Parts of the Constitution.

The Constitution of India is organised into Parts, each covering one subject and each carrying a continuous run of Articles, and the order of those Parts is itself examinable. The opening sequence is: Part I, The Union and its Territory (Articles 1-4); Part II, Citizenship (Articles 5-11); Part III, Fundamental Rights (Articles 12-35); Part IV, Directive Principles of State Policy (Articles 36-51); Part IVA, Fundamental Duties (Article 51A). The Preamble stands before all of them. Later Parts follow the machinery of government — Part V the Union, Part VI the States, Part IX the Panchayats, Part IXA the Municipalities, Part XI Union-State relations, Part XIV Services under the Union and the States, and Part XX the amendment power in Article 368. Parts carrying a letter — IVA, IXA, IXB, XIVA — are all later insertions, which is why the lettering is the quickest signal that a subject was added by amendment.

Students usually memorise Articles rather than Parts, so a question phrased as 'arrange these subjects in the order the Constitution mentions them' can feel unfamiliar even when every underlying fact is known. Convert it into Articles and it becomes trivial: Union and Territory at Article 1, Citizenship at Article 5, Directive Principles at Article 36, Fundamental Duties at Article 51A. The one thing worth committing to memory is the lettered-Part rule. Part IVA (Fundamental Duties, 1976), Part IXA (Municipalities, 74th Amendment), Part IXB (Co-operative Societies) and Part XIVA (Tribunals) were all inserted later and always sit immediately after the Part whose number they borrow. A candidate who remembers that Fundamental Duties are a 1976 graft onto the original text will never place them before the Directive Principles.

• Part I of the Constitution is 'The Union and its Territory' (Articles 1-4) and Part II is 'Citizenship' (Articles 5-11); the Preamble precedes both.
• Part III is Fundamental Rights (Articles 12-35) and Part IV is the Directive Principles of State Policy (Articles 36-51).
• Fundamental Duties form Part IVA, Article 51A, inserted by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976 on the recommendation of the Swaran Singh Committee — the only one of the four subjects in this question that was not in the Constitution as adopted.
• Article 51A originally listed ten duties; an eleventh, obliging a parent or guardian to provide education opportunities to a child aged six to fourteen, was added by the 86th Amendment, 2002.
• A lettered Part number — IVA, IXA, IXB, XIVA — always signals a Part inserted by a later amendment and placed immediately after the Part it is numbered from.

• Placing Fundamental Duties immediately after Fundamental Rights because the names are similar. Duties are Part IVA, after the Directive Principles, not after Part III.
• Forgetting that Citizenship is Part II and comes before Fundamental Rights — a common slip, since candidates associate the start of the Constitution with rights.
• Reading 'Part IVA' as a sub-heading of Part IV. It is a separate Part inserted in 1976 and is the reason the Duties come last of the four subjects here.

UPPSC likes Part-to-subject matching, 'which pair is not correctly matched', and sequencing items exactly like this one. UPSC prefers to test the same knowledge functionally — which Part or provision contains a quoted phrase, which Amendment inserted a provision, or whether a given obligation is a Right, a Directive Principle or a Duty.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Fundamental Duties were added to the Constitution of India by which Amendment?

  • (a)The 24th Amendment, 1971
  • (b)The 42nd Amendment, 1976
  • (c)The 44th Amendment, 1978
  • (d)The 86th Amendment, 2002

  Answer(b) The 42nd Amendment, 1976 — it inserted Part IVA and Article 51A on the Swaran Singh Committee's recommendation; the 86th Amendment only added the eleventh duty.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following Parts of the Constitution of India deals with Citizenship?

  • (a)Part I
  • (b)Part II
  • (c)Part III
  • (d)Part IVA

  Answer(b) Part II — Citizenship occupies Articles 5 to 11, between 'The Union and its Territory' and the Fundamental Rights.