Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon – April 11, 2018

‘Amendments’ not ‘deemed’ to be so there are some provisions in the Indian Constitution that may be amended by the parliament but such ‘amendments’ are not considered- ‘deemed’ – Constitution amendments. The reason is that the procedure for such changes is not found in Article 368; the process requires only a simple majority in the Parliament; some of them are of consequential nature (Art. 4 and 169, for example). The following are such provisions in the Constitution:

• Admission or establishment of new States or formation of new states and alteration of areas, boundaries or names of existing States; changes in First and Fourth Schedules as a result (Art.4)
• Art. 11 empowers Parliament to make laws related to certain aspects of citizenship
• Parliament can amend Second Schedule to revise the salaries of certain Constitutional dignitaries
• Creation or abolition of Legislative Councils in States(Art.169)
• Fifth and Sixth Schedules – administration and control of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled tribes; administration of Tribal Areas in the States of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram respectively; amendment of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Orders
• Art.239A relating to creating an Assembly or Council of Ministers in a UT.
• Art. 105(3) contains parliamentary privileges until Parliament defines them.

DPSP are not legally enforceable in a court of law. However, Article 37 says that It shall be the duty of the State to apply these principles in making

Mentor Note: This is a direct question with level of difficulty as “easy”. A thorough reading of the chapter on Directive Principles of State Policy should help you clear basic concepts like the above. If you are not able to answer this question, you should be able to do so after a thorough reading of the text on DPSP from any standard book including Laxmikanth.

The basic structure doctrine is an Indian judicial principle that the Constitution of India has certain basic features that cannot be altered or destroyed through amendments by the parliament. The basic features of the Constitution have not been explicitly defined by the Judiciary, and the claim of any particular feature of the Constitution to be a “basic” feature is determined by the Court in each case that comes before it.

The Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution of India, enacted on 10 August 1975, placed the election of the President, the Vice President, the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha beyond the scrutiny of the Indian courts. It was passed during the Emergency of 1975-1977. It was struck down by Supreme court as ultra vires the constitution.

Amendment Bills can be introduced in either house. Preamble can also be amended subject to the doctrine of basic structure.

The 97th Constitutional Amendment Act of 2011 gave a constitutional status and protection to Co-operative societies. In this context, it made the following three changes in the constitution:

1. It made the right to form co-operative societies a fundamental right (Article 19(1)).
2. It included a new Directive Principle of State Policy on promotion of co-operative societies (Article 43-B2).
3. It added a new Part IX-B in the Constitution which is entitled “The Co-operative Societies” (Articles 243-ZH to 243-ZT).

Incorporation of Co-operative Societies: The state legislature may make provisions for the incorporation, regulation and winding-up of co-operative societies based on the principles of voluntary formation, democratic member-control, member-economic participation and autonomous functioning.

Audit of Co-operative societies: Every co-operative society shall be audited by an auditor or

auditing firm, appointed by the general body of the co-operative society. But, such an auditor or auditing firm shall be appointed from a panel approved by the State Government or a body authorised by the State Government on this behalf.

Parliament can legislate on State subjects under certain circumstances.

There are discussed below:

• 1. When a resolution is passed by the Rajya Sabha by two-thirds majority making it lawful for the Parliament to legislate on a subject mentioned in the State List in national interest (Art.249).
• 2. When a proclamation of emergency is in operation, the Parliament has the power to make laws for the whole or any part of India on any of the matters stated in the State List (Art.250).
• 3. When two or more States give their consent and pass resolutions for the same in their respective Legislatures to enable the Parliament to make a law on any matter listed in the State List (Art.252). Any such law will be applicable to only those States which have passed such resolution, not to all states.
• 4. The Parliament has the power to make laws for the whole or any part of India for implementing any treaty, agreement or convention with any other country or any decision made at any international conference etc. (Art.253)

The CAG enjoys the same rank as judges of the Supreme Court in the order of precedence.

The CAG submits his report to the President who causes it to be laid before the Parliament, which is then examined by the Public Account Committee. Committee on Public Undertakings examines the reports and accounts of public undertakings and also the CAG audit reports on public undertakings only.

While in India, the CAG performs only auditing functions, and not Comptrolling functions. ( Hence it is said that Indian CAG is a misnomer ), in the UK the CAG performs both the Comptrolling and Auditing functions.