Centre-State Relations — PPSC previous year questions

Among the options only Delhi has a Legislative Assembly. Article 239AA, inserted by the 69th Amendment Act, 1991, gave the National Capital Territory of Delhi an Assembly and a Council of Ministers. Puducherry (Article 239A, since 1963) and, since the J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019, the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir are the other UTs with legislatures. Chandigarh, Lakshadweep and Dadra and Nagar Haveli are run directly through an Administrator appointed by the President.

Article 370, in Part XXI, gave temporary special status to Jammu and Kashmir: Parliament could legislate for the State only on matters in the Instrument of Accession, and anything more needed a Presidential order with the State's concurrence. Its special provisions were withdrawn by Presidential Order on 5 August 2019 and the State was reorganised into the UTs of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. Nagaland, Assam and Andhra Pradesh get their special provisions from Articles 371A, 371B and 371D.

Article 253 lets Parliament make any law for the whole or any part of India to implement a treaty, agreement or convention with another country. It also covers a decision of an international body. It may do this even on State List subjects. No state consent is needed. This is one of the cases where Parliament can legislate on state subjects, along with Articles 249, 250, 252 and 356.

Public order and police are entries in the State List of the Seventh Schedule, so only state legislatures make laws on them. Labour welfare is in the Concurrent List, while banking and currency and coinage are in the Union List.

India has a single integrated judiciary with the Supreme Court at the apex. There is no bifurcation of courts between the Union and the states, so 1 is absent. States are represented in the Rajya Sabha in proportion to population, not equally as in the US Senate, so 2 is absent. India is very much an indestructible Union from which no state may secede, so 3 is present. Article 3 gives Parliament power to form new states and alter boundaries, so 4 is present too. But that is a unitary trait rather than a federal one. So the federal principles missing in India are 1 and 2 only.

Zonal Councils are statutory, not constitutional bodies. Five of them — Northern, Central, Eastern, Western and Southern — came under Part III of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956. The North-Eastern Council came separately by an Act of 1971. They are purely advisory forums for Centre–State and inter-State cooperation. The Union Home Minister chairs them. The Chief Ministers of member states are vice-chairman by rotation. Chandigarh is only a Union Territory, yet it is a member of the Northern Zonal Council. Its other members are Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.

Article 248 and Entry 97 of the Union List give Parliament exclusive power to legislate on residuary matters — those not listed in the Union, State or Concurrent Lists. Whether a particular subject is actually a residuary matter, however, is a question of constitutional interpretation, and the final say rests with the Supreme Court as the guardian of the federal scheme.

Population control and family planning is entry 20A of the Concurrent List, added by the 42nd Amendment in 1976. Public health and sanitation, capitation taxes and treasure trove are all entries of the State List.

Entry 14 of the State List (Seventh Schedule) reads 'Agriculture, including agricultural education and research, protection against pests and prevention of plant diseases', so the subject belongs to the States. Land, land revenue and agricultural income tax are also State subjects, whereas the Union List and Concurrent List do not cover agriculture as such.

Gorkhaland is a demand for a separate state in the Darjeeling hills of West Bengal. The Gorkha National Liberation Front led it, and later the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha. It has nothing to do with Gujarat, so pair (a) is wrong. The other pairs are correct statehood movements. Marupradesh is for the desert districts of western Rajasthan. Vidarbha is in eastern Maharashtra. Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in June 2014.