UPPSC 2025 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 141 of 150

Correct — C, A-3, B-1, C-4, D-2. Taking the four Schedules in order. The Seventh Schedule (A) sets out the three legislative lists — the Union List, the State List and the Concurrent List — under which Article 246 divides law-making power between Parliament and the State legislatures, so it matches 3. The Eighth Schedule (B) is the list of languages recognised by the Constitution, originally fourteen and now twenty-two, referred to in Articles 344(1) and 351, so it matches 1. The Ninth Schedule (C) is headed 'Validation of certain Acts and Regulations' — it was inserted by the very first amendment to the Constitution in 1951, together with Article 31B, to place a class of laws, mainly land-reform legislation, beyond challenge on the ground that they violated Fundamental Rights — so it matches 4. The Tenth Schedule (D) contains the anti-defection provisions, added by the Fifty-second Amendment in 1985 and attached to Articles 102(2) and 191(2), under which a member of Parliament or of a State legislature is disqualified for voluntarily giving up party membership or for voting against the party whip, so it matches 2. That gives A-3, B-1, C-4, D-2 — option (c). The one live decision in this item is between the Ninth and the Tenth, because their subjects are the two that sound interchangeable to a candidate who has memorised numbers without content. Fix the Ninth to the year 1951 and land reform, and the Tenth to 1985 and defection, and the pair separates cleanly.

• (a)A-3, B-1, C-2, D-4 — This is the near miss and by far the most dangerous option here. It gets the first two right — Seventh Schedule to the legislative lists, Eighth to languages — and then inverts the last two, assigning defection to the Ninth Schedule and validation of Acts to the Tenth. It is the other way round. The Ninth Schedule dates from the First Amendment of 1951 and shields listed laws, largely land-reform statutes, from Fundamental Rights challenge under Article 31B; the anti-defection code came thirty-four years later with the Fifty-second Amendment of 1985. A candidate who has done the work on the Seventh and Eighth but never separated the Ninth from the Tenth ends up here.
• (b)A-2, B-3, C-4, D-1 — Only the Ninth Schedule is correctly placed. The rest is scrambled: it hands the anti-defection provisions to the Seventh Schedule, the legislative lists to the Eighth, and languages to the Tenth. The Seventh Schedule is the backbone of Indian federalism — Union, State and Concurrent Lists — and has nothing to do with disqualifying legislators; the Eighth is nothing but a list of languages, which is why it is amended whenever a new language is recognised, as in 1967, 1992 and 2003.
• (d)A-4, B-2, C-1, D-3 — Every pairing in this option is wrong. It attaches validation of Acts to the Seventh Schedule, defection to the Eighth, languages to the Ninth and the legislative lists to the Tenth — a clean four-way rotation of the correct answer. It can be eliminated the moment a single Schedule is known with confidence, which is worth remembering as a technique: in a match-list with four items, one securely held pair usually kills two or three options outright.

The Schedules are the tabular appendices of the Constitution. They exist so that long lists and detailed provisions do not clutter the main text, and each is tied to specific Articles. The Constitution began with eight Schedules and now has twelve; the four in this question are the ones examiners return to most. The Seventh distributes legislative subjects between the Union and the States; the Eighth lists the recognised languages; the Ninth is a protective list of statutes; and the Tenth codifies the anti-defection law. The Ninth and Tenth are also the two that were added later and by amendment, which is the fact that most reliably separates them.

Match-list items on the Schedules reward one habit above all: attach each Schedule to the amendment that created or last shaped it, because the dates are far more memorable than the numbers. The Ninth Schedule is the First Amendment, 1951, land reform, Article 31B. The Tenth Schedule is the Fifty-second Amendment, 1985, defection, Articles 102(2) and 191(2). The Eighth is the one amended repeatedly as languages were added — Sindhi in 1967, Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali in 1992, Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali in 2003. The Seventh needs no amendment story; it is the original federal architecture under Article 246. Then use elimination rather than completing the whole match: fix the one pair you are surest of, strike out every option that contradicts it, and check the remainder. Here, being certain that the Tenth Schedule is anti-defection removes options (a), (b) and (d) in a single stroke and leaves only (c). Keep the neighbouring Schedules distinct too, because they are the standard decoys — the Fourth allocates Rajya Sabha seats, the Fifth and Sixth deal with Scheduled and tribal areas, the Eleventh and Twelfth list panchayat and municipal subjects.

• Seventh Schedule — the Union, State and Concurrent Lists, giving effect to Article 246; originally 97, 66 and 47 entries respectively, with education and forests moved from the State List to the Concurrent List by the Forty-second Amendment in 1976
• Eighth Schedule — the recognised languages, referred to in Articles 344(1) and 351; fourteen at the commencement of the Constitution and twenty-two today, after Sindhi in 1967, Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali in 1992, and Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali in 2003
• Ninth Schedule — 'Validation of certain Acts and Regulations', inserted with Article 31B by the Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951, principally to protect land-reform laws from being struck down for violating Fundamental Rights
• In I. R. Coelho v. State of Tamil Nadu (2007) the Supreme Court held that a law placed in the Ninth Schedule after 24 April 1973, the date of the Kesavananda Bharati judgment, remains open to judicial review on the touchstone of the basic structure — so the shield is no longer absolute
• Tenth Schedule — disqualification on the ground of defection, added by the Constitution (Fifty-second Amendment) Act, 1985; the Ninety-first Amendment of 2003 removed the exemption for a one-third 'split', leaving only a two-thirds merger, and capped the Council of Ministers at fifteen per cent of the House
• The Constitution originally had eight Schedules and now has twelve; the Eleventh (29 panchayat subjects) and the Twelfth (18 municipal subjects) came with the Seventy-third and Seventy-fourth Amendments of 1992
• The number ten had been used once before and briefly, for the terms of Sikkim's association under the Thirty-fifth Amendment of 1974; that schedule was omitted in 1975 when Sikkim became a full State, and the number was free when the anti-defection law arrived in 1985

• Swapping the Ninth and the Tenth. The Ninth validates and protects listed laws from 1951; the Tenth disqualifies defecting legislators from 1985
• Believing a law in the Ninth Schedule is wholly immune from the courts. Since I. R. Coelho (2007), anything inserted after 24 April 1973 can be tested against the basic structure
• Confusing the Eighth Schedule's languages with the languages listed elsewhere, or with the Official Language provisions in Part XVII
• Trying to complete the whole match instead of eliminating. One securely known pair — here, the Tenth Schedule — disposes of three of the four options at once

The Schedules are among the most predictable topics in UPPSC Paper-I, and the commission alternates between two formats: the four-way match-list used here, and the 'which pair is NOT correctly matched' version it used in 2019 and again in 2023. UPSC prefers the single-Schedule question — which Schedule contains anti-defection, which amendment added the Ninth Schedule, which amendment added four languages to the Eighth — and occasionally a statement pair on the reviewability of Ninth Schedule laws.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Ninth Schedule was added to the Constitution of India by

  • (a)the Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951
  • (b)the Constitution (Seventh Amendment) Act, 1956
  • (c)the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976
  • (d)the Constitution (Fifty-second Amendment) Act, 1985

  Answer(a) the Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951 — which also inserted Article 31B to protect the listed laws, mainly land-reform statutes, from challenge on Fundamental Rights grounds. The Fifty-second Amendment of 1985 added the Tenth Schedule, not the Ninth.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Consider the following statements about the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India : 1. It was inserted by the Fifty-second Amendment Act, 1985. 2. The exemption available to a one-third 'split' in a legislature party was removed by the Ninety-first Amendment Act, 2003. Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?

  • (a)1 only
  • (b)2 only
  • (c)Both 1 and 2
  • (d)Neither 1 nor 2

  Answer(c) Both 1 and 2 — the anti-defection law came with the Fifty-second Amendment in 1985, and the Ninety-first Amendment of 2003 deleted the split exemption, leaving only a two-thirds merger as a defence.