With reference to Municipalities, which of the following statements is/are correct ? 1. The eligible age to be a member of municipality is 25 years. 2. One-third of the total number of seats to be filled by direct election in the municipalities is reserved for women. Select the correct answer from the code given below : Code :
- (a)Both 1 and 2
- (b)Only 2
- (c)Neither 1 nor 2
- (d)Only 1
Correct — B, Only 2. Read the printed options before you commit, because this booklet has shuffled them: 'Both 1 and 2' sits at (a), where a candidate expects 'Only 1', and 'Only 1' has been pushed down to (d). Statement 1 is incorrect. The eligible age to be a member of a municipality is twenty-one, not twenty-five. Article 243V borrows the qualification from the State Legislature — for which the minimum age is twenty-five — and then immediately carves it back with a proviso: 'no person shall be disqualified on the ground that he is less than twenty-five years of age, if he has attained the age of twenty-one years.' The drafting is roundabout, but its effect is plain, and Part IX does exactly the same thing for Panchayats. Statement 2 is correct, and correct almost word for word. Article 243T(3) provides that 'not less than one-third (including the number of seats reserved for women belonging to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes) of the total number of seats to be filled by direct election in every Municipality shall be reserved for women', with the seats allotted by rotation to different constituencies. Two things in that clause repay attention: the reservation attaches only to seats filled by DIRECT election, and the one-third is inclusive of SC and ST women rather than additional to them. So statement 1 falls on its number, statement 2 stands on the text, and the option that reads 'Only 2' on this paper is (b).
- (a)Both 1 and 2 — Accepts the age of twenty-five, which is the qualifying age for a State Legislative Assembly, not for a municipality. This is the natural error, because Article 243V does begin by importing the State Legislature's qualifications wholesale — and if you stop reading at that point, twenty-five looks right. The proviso that follows is the operative part, and it exists precisely so that local self-government can draw on younger people than the Assembly does. This option is doubly dangerous on this booklet because it occupies the position where many candidates expect to find 'Only 1'.
- (c)Neither 1 nor 2 — Rejects statement 2, and statement 2 is a near-quotation of Article 243T(3). Candidates sometimes doubt it because they know that several states have legislated fifty per cent reservation for women in their urban and rural local bodies, and conclude that one-third must be out of date. It is not: the Constitution sets a floor of not less than one-third, and a state raising it by its own law does not repeal the constitutional minimum. 'Not less than' is the phrase that reconciles the two.
- (d)Only 1 — The exact inversion of the truth — it keeps the false statement and discards the true one. It is also where 'Only 1' has been placed in this booklet rather than at (a), so it will catch two different candidates: one who genuinely believes the age is twenty-five, and one who has correctly concluded that only statement 2 is right and then marks by remembered position. On the merits, twenty-one is the age fixed by the proviso to Article 243V, and the one-third women's reservation in Article 243T(3) is beyond argument.
Part IX-A of the Constitution, inserted by the 74th Amendment Act of 1992 and in force from 1 June 1993, gave urban local government the same constitutional footing that the 73rd Amendment gave Panchayats. It creates three kinds of urban body under Article 243Q — a Nagar Panchayat for an area in transition from rural to urban, a Municipal Council for a smaller urban area and a Municipal Corporation for a larger one — fixes a five-year term, requires elections to be held before that term expires or within six months of a dissolution, vests superintendence of those elections in a State Election Commission, and provides for a State Finance Commission to review the sharing of resources. Within that framework Article 243T governs reservation of seats and Article 243V governs disqualifications, including the age at which a person may be chosen.
Both halves of this question are testing whether the candidate has read the actual constitutional text rather than a summary of it. The age question is a drafting trap: the article opens by importing the State Legislature's qualifications, which would give twenty-five, and then lowers it by proviso to twenty-one. Anyone who remembers the first half and not the second answers wrongly, and the same trap can be set with Article 243F for Panchayats, which is worded the same way. The reservation question is a precision test: one-third is a minimum, not a fixed quota; it covers only directly elected seats, so nominated members and ex-officio members fall outside it; and it is inclusive of SC and ST women. Solve both, then look carefully at the option letters, because this booklet has moved 'Both 1 and 2' to (a) and 'Only 1' to (d).
- Article 243V, proviso: 'no person shall be disqualified on the ground that he is less than twenty-five years of age, if he has attained the age of twenty-one years' — so the minimum age for membership of a municipality is 21
- Article 243T(3): 'Not less than one-third (including the number of seats reserved for women belonging to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes) of the total number of seats to be filled by direct election in every Municipality shall be reserved for women', allotted by rotation to different constituencies
- Article 243T(2) separately requires that not less than one-third of the seats reserved for SCs and STs shall go to women of those communities
- Part IX-A was inserted by the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992 and came into force on 1 June 1993; Article 243Q provides three types of urban body — Nagar Panchayat, Municipal Council and Municipal Corporation
- Municipalities have a five-year term, their elections are superintended by a State Election Commission, and a State Finance Commission reviews their financial position — the urban mirrors of the Panchayat provisions in Part IX
- The one-third is a constitutional floor, not a ceiling: several states have legislated fifty per cent reservation for women in their local bodies, which the words 'not less than' permit
- The shuffled option order in this booklet. 'Both 1 and 2' sits at (a) and 'Only 1' at (d), so a candidate who reasons correctly and then answers by remembered position is likely to mark (a) or (d) instead of (b)
- Reading only the first half of Article 243V. It imports the State Legislature's qualification of twenty-five and then lowers it to twenty-one by proviso; the proviso is the operative part
- Treating one-third as a fixed quota. The Constitution says 'not less than one-third', it counts only directly elected seats, and it is inclusive of SC and ST women — three qualifications a paraphrase usually loses
UPPSC returns to Parts IX and IX-A almost every year and prefers the numbers — ages, fractions, terms, the count of urban body types — because they are checkable against the bare text. UPSC asks the same Parts more structurally, testing which Part contains which subject or how many kinds of municipality Article 243Q envisages. A candidate who has read Articles 243D and 243T for reservation, 243F and 243V for qualifications, and 243E and 243U for duration is covered for both.
Consider the following statements: 1. Part IX of the Constitution of India contains provisions for Panchayats and was inserted by the Constitution (73rd Amendment) Act, 1992. 2. Part IX A of the Constitution of India contains provisions for municipalities and Article 243Q envisages two types of municipalities – a Municipal Council and a Municipal Corporation – for every state. 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(a) 1 only
Tests Part IX-A from the neighbouring angle and rewards the same habit — reading the article rather than a summary of it. There the trap is Article 243Q, which envisages three kinds of urban body (Nagar Panchayat, Municipal Council, Municipal Corporation) and not the two the statement claims; here it is Article 243V, whose proviso lowers the age to twenty-one after the main clause has implied twenty-five. In both cases the wrong answer is what a careful paraphrase would produce.
Which of the following statements are correct about the Constitution of India? 1. Powers of the Municipalities are given in Part IX A of the Constitution. 2. Emergency provisions are given in Part XVIII of the Constitution. 3. Provisions related to the amendment of the Constitution are given in Part XX of the Constitution. Select the answer using the code given below:
- (a) 1 and 2 only
- (b) 2 and 3 only
- (c) 1 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer(d) 1, 2 and 3
Anchors the location of the subject in the constitutional scheme. Knowing that municipalities live in Part IX-A is the first step towards knowing that Articles 243T and 243V are where reservation and qualifications for them are set out — and it is the step that separates a candidate who can find the provision from one who is guessing at the numbers.
With reference to Panchayats which of the statements is/are correct ? 1. Fifty percent seats shall be reserved for the women of SC/ST categories. 2. Gram Sabha is a body consisting of all persons living in the village. 3. There will be a Panchayat at intermediate level. Select the correct answer using the codes given below : Codes :
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 and 3
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) 3 only
Answer(d) 3 only
The rural twin of statement 2, and it shows how carefully UPPSC words these reservation items. The statement it rejects claims fifty per cent for SC and ST women, whereas the Constitution provides not less than one-third of the seats reserved for SCs and STs for women of those communities, and not less than one-third of all directly elected seats for women overall. The same fraction and the same 'not less than' formula recur in Article 243T for municipalities, which is exactly what statement 2 here reproduces.
Which Part of the Constitution has the provisions for Panchayati Raj System ?
- (a) IX
- (b) VI
- (c) III
- (d) IV A
Answer(a) IX
Fixes the pairing that the whole of this question sits inside: Part IX for Panchayats, inserted by the 73rd Amendment, and Part IX-A for Municipalities, inserted by the 74th. Once that pair is secure, the mirrored articles follow — 243D and 243T for reservation, 243F and 243V for the age proviso, 243K and 243ZA for the State Election Commission — and the age of twenty-one can be recalled from either side.
- practice — not a real PYQ
What is the minimum age prescribed for a person to be chosen as a member of a Municipality?
- (a)18 years
- (b)21 years
- (c)25 years
- (d)30 years
Answer(b) 21 years — the proviso to Article 243V provides that no person shall be disqualified for being less than twenty-five years of age if he has attained twenty-one.
- practice — not a real PYQ
With reference to the reservation of seats for women in Municipalities under Article 243T, consider the following statements: 1. The reservation applies to seats to be filled by direct election. 2. The one-third reservation is in addition to the seats reserved for women belonging to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a)Only 1
- (b)Only 2
- (c)Both 1 and 2
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2
Answer(a) Only 1 — the reservation covers directly elected seats, but the one-third is expressly stated to INCLUDE the seats reserved for SC and ST women, not to be additional to them.