The pardoning power of the President of India is granted by which Article?

The correct answer is C, Article 123. It empowers the President to promulgate an ordinance when Parliament, or either House of it, is not in session and the President is satisfied that circumstances exist which make immediate action necessary; such an ordinance has the same force and effect as an Act of Parliament. Option A is wrong because Article 72 is the pardoning power, under which the President may grant pardon, reprieve, respite, remission, suspension or commutation of punishment. Option B is wrong because Article 111 deals with assent to bills passed by both Houses and is the source of the President's veto powers, not of ordinances. Option D is wrong because Article 213 confers the matching ordinance-making power on a Governor in respect of state subjects, and swapping 123 with 213 is the usual error in this question.

The correct answer is B, six weeks. An ordinance must be laid before both Houses when Parliament reassembles, and it ceases to operate on the expiry of six weeks from the date of reassembly, or earlier if both Houses pass resolutions disapproving it. Where the two Houses reassemble on different dates, the six weeks are counted from the later of the two. Option A is wrong because four weeks is not a period mentioned anywhere in Article 123. Option C is wrong because three months has no place in the ordinance scheme either, although it appears in other parts of the Constitution. Option D is wrong because six months is the maximum gap permitted between two sessions of Parliament, and it is this gap plus the six weeks that gives an ordinance its maximum life.

The correct answer is C, six months and six weeks. The arithmetic is worth learning. Article 85 requires that six months shall not intervene between the last sitting of one session and the first sitting of the next, so the longest an ordinance can run before Parliament reassembles is six months; Article 123 then allows it six weeks more from the date of reassembly. Option A is wrong because six weeks is only the period after reassembly, not the whole life of the ordinance. Option B is wrong because the gap between sessions is capped at six months and not at three. Option D is wrong because no ordinance can survive a year without parliamentary approval, and it was precisely the practice of keeping ordinances alive beyond their term by re-issuing them that the Supreme Court struck down.

The correct answer is B, qualified veto. A qualified veto is one that the legislature can override only by a special higher majority, such as two-thirds; it belongs to the American President and not to the Indian one, because when the Indian President returns a bill a simple majority in both Houses is enough to compel assent. Option A is wrong because the absolute veto is available: the President may withhold assent and the bill then dies, as happened with the PEPSU Appropriation Bill of 1954. Option C is wrong because the suspensive veto, the power to return a bill for reconsideration, is available for every bill except a Money Bill. Option D is wrong because the pocket veto is available, no time limit for assent being prescribed by Article 111.

The correct answer is B, the Indian Post Office (Amendment) Bill, 1986, and Zail Singh. The bill, which would have allowed the interception of postal articles, was neither assented to nor returned by President Zail Singh, who simply kept it pending, and it lapsed; this is the standing Indian illustration of a pocket veto. Option A is wrong because the Hindu Code Bill was a matter of political controversy in the early 1950s but was not disposed of by a pocket veto. Option C is wrong because the PEPSU Appropriation Bill of 1954 is the example of an absolute veto, assent having been positively withheld. Option D is wrong because the 1991 bill on the salaries of members of Parliament is also cited as an absolute veto, assent being refused rather than withheld by inaction.