What is the maximum number of starred questions that may be listed for oral answer on a single day in the Lok Sabha?

The correct answer is B, the first hour of the sitting. Question Hour is the first hour of every sitting of each House, normally from 11 a.m. to 12 noon, and it is set out in the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business. During this hour members put questions to ministers on matters of public administration within their charge, and the minister is bound to reply. A, the last hour, is wrong because the last part of a sitting is given to the listed legislative or financial business, not to questions. C is wrong because the hour after Question Hour is Zero Hour, and the business after the recess is whatever the day's list carries; no device is tied to the lunch recess. D is wrong because no hour is reserved for questions before adjournment; once Question Hour is over, questions can be taken only through a short notice question that the Speaker specially admits.

The correct answer is C, 1962. Zero Hour is an Indian innovation in parliamentary procedure and has been in use since 1962. It begins immediately after Question Hour, at about 12 noon, and lasts until the listed business of the day is taken up, and it allows a member to raise a matter without the prior notice that every other device requires. Its most examined feature is that it is nowhere mentioned in the Rules of Procedure, which makes it an informal device. A, 1952, is wrong because that year marks the first sitting of the Parliament elected under the Constitution, not the start of Zero Hour. B, 1954, is wrong because that is the year from which the calling attention motion, another Indian innovation, has been in use. D, 1977, is wrong; no parliamentary device of this kind dates from that year.

The correct answer is B, it is answered orally and supplementary questions are allowed. A starred question is distinguished by an asterisk, is answered on the floor of the House by the minister, and because the answer is oral, members may follow it with supplementary questions. The daily limit is twenty starred questions in the Lok Sabha. A is wrong because a written answer with no supplementaries describes an unstarred question, whose daily limit in the Lok Sabha is two hundred and thirty. C is wrong because a question to a private member is a separate category, admitted only when the subject is a Bill or a matter for which that member is responsible. D is wrong because the requirement of fifty members' support belongs to the adjournment motion and the no-confidence motion, not to any kind of question.

The correct answer is A, the Lok Sabha only. The adjournment motion is admitted in the Lok Sabha alone, because it carries an element of censure against the government and only the Lok Sabha can censure the Council of Ministers under the collective responsibility laid down in Article 75. It draws the attention of the House to a definite matter of urgent public importance, needs the support of fifty members, and once admitted the discussion on it must last at least two hours and thirty minutes. B is wrong because the Rajya Sabha has no adjournment motion at all; a member there raises such a matter through a special mention or a calling attention notice. C is wrong for the same reason. D is wrong because a joint sitting is summoned under Article 108 only to resolve a deadlock over a Bill, and no motion of this kind is taken there.

The correct answer is C, two hours and thirty minutes. The rules provide that once the Speaker admits an adjournment motion, the House must give it not less than two hours and thirty minutes of discussion, so that a matter grave enough to set aside the listed business is actually examined. A, one hour, is wrong, though it may be confused with the half-an-hour discussion, which is a different device altogether and lasts thirty minutes. B, two hours, is wrong, but it is the trap in this question: the short duration discussion under Rule 193 is popularly called the two-hour discussion, and candidates transfer its length to the adjournment motion. D, three hours, is wrong; no rule fixes a three-hour minimum for any of these devices. In practice the Speaker takes up an admitted adjournment motion at four in the afternoon, after the day's listed business, and the discussion ends in a vote.