SSC CHSL Previous Year GK Questions

The correct answer is Article 30. Article 30(1) gives all minorities, whether based on religion or on language, the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. Article 30(2) adds that the State, when giving aid to educational institutions, shall not discriminate against an institution because it is managed by a minority. Together with Article 29, it makes up the Cultural and Educational Rights.

Article 26 is the most tempting wrong answer, because it too speaks of establishing institutions. But Article 26 gives religious denominations the right to establish and maintain institutions for religious and charitable purposes and to manage their own religious affairs; it is about religion, not education. Article 30 is specifically about educational institutions and specifically for minorities. Article 29, by contrast, protects any section of citizens with a distinct language, script or culture, majority or minority. Of the other options, Article 24 bans child labour in hazardous work and Article 32 is the right to constitutional remedies.

The correct answer is 86th. The 86th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2002 made education a Fundamental Right by inserting Article 21A, under which the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children aged six to fourteen years, in the manner it determines by law. That law is the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, which came into force on 1 April 2010.

The same amendment made two more changes, and both are asked in exams. It rewrote Article 45, a Directive Principle, so that it now asks the State to provide early childhood care and education for children below six. And it added a Fundamental Duty, Article 51A(k), requiring parents or guardians to provide opportunities for education to their child between six and fourteen. So one amendment touched three Parts of the Constitution: Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles and Fundamental Duties. The 85th, 87th and 88th are neighbouring numbers placed as distractors; the 85th Amendment, for example, dealt with consequential seniority in promotions for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

The correct answer is Article 12. Most Fundamental Rights are claims against the State, so whoever counts as the "State" is bound by them. Article 12 defines the State for Part III to include the Government and Parliament of India, the government and legislature of each State, and all local or other authorities within the territory of India or under the control of the Government of India. Local authorities include bodies such as municipalities and panchayats.

The question's point about judicial decisions refers to the words "other authorities". Courts have read them widely, holding that statutory and government-controlled bodies, such as the Life Insurance Corporation and the Oil and Natural Gas Commission, are also the State for this purpose. Article 13 is the tempting wrong answer because it sits right next door: it makes laws inconsistent with Fundamental Rights void and is the base of judicial review. Article 14 guarantees equality before law and Article 15 forbids discrimination. A simple way to separate them: Article 12 answers "against whom are the rights enforced?" and Article 13 answers "what happens to a law that violates them?"

The correct answer is United States of America. The idea of beginning a constitution with a preamble was borrowed from the Constitution of the USA, whose own text opens with the words "We the People". The content of India's Preamble, however, comes from Jawaharlal Nehru's Objectives Resolution, moved in the Constituent Assembly on 13 December 1946 and adopted on 22 January 1947.

The other countries are sources of different parts of the Preamble or of the Constitution. The USSR is the source of the ideal of social, economic and political justice. Britain gave parliamentary government, the rule of law and single citizenship. Canada gave the model of a federation with a strong Centre. Be careful to separate two different questions that look alike: the idea of having a preamble came from the USA, while the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity written inside it came from the French Revolution.

The correct answer is Sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic, republic. This is the order in which the Preamble describes India: "a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC". Socialist and secular were inserted between sovereign and democratic by the 42nd Amendment in 1976; before that the phrase read "sovereign democratic republic".

The first option swaps socialist and secular, which is the most common slip, since both words were added at the same time. The third option repeats "secular" and begins with the wrong word, and the fourth moves "sovereign" from the front to the end. A simple way to hold the order is to say the three S-words by sound: So, So, Se (Sovereign, Socialist, Secular), followed by the original last two words, Democratic Republic. The two words added in 1976 sit together in the middle.

The correct answer is Germany. The provision for suspending Fundamental Rights during an Emergency was taken from the Weimar Constitution of Germany. It is the only feature of the Indian Constitution usually traced to that source.

The other options are sources of different features. France gave the idea of a republic and the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity in the Preamble. Russia, as the former USSR, gave the Fundamental Duties and the ideal of social, economic and political justice. Australia gave the Concurrent List, freedom of trade and commerce, and the joint sitting of the two Houses of Parliament. The emergency provisions as a whole are drawn largely from the Government of India Act, 1935, so a question on "emergency provisions" in general points there, while one on "suspension of Fundamental Rights during an Emergency" points to Germany. Read the wording carefully before choosing.

The correct answer is B.N. Rau. Sir Benegal Narsing Rau was appointed the constitutional (legal) adviser to the Constituent Assembly. He studied the constitutions of other countries and prepared the initial draft of the Constitution, which the Drafting Committee then worked on before publishing its own draft in February 1948.

B.R. Ambedkar is the most likely wrong pick: he chaired the Drafting Committee and steered the Constitution through the Assembly, but he was not the Assembly's adviser. H.V.R. Iyengar served as the Secretary of the Constituent Assembly, an administrative office, and S.N. Mukherjee was its chief draftsman. The distinction the question tests is between the adviser who prepared the first draft (Rau) and the committee chairman who guided the final text (Ambedkar). Questions sometimes use the words "legal adviser" and sometimes "constitutional adviser"; both point to B.N. Rau.

The correct answer is B.R. Ambedkar. The Drafting Committee was set up on 29 August 1947 with seven members, and Dr B.R. Ambedkar was its chairman. The committee published the Draft Constitution in February 1948, and Ambedkar piloted it through the Assembly's clause-by-clause debate, which is why he is remembered as the chief architect of the Constitution.

K.M. Munshi and Mohammad Saadullah were members of the same committee, not its chairman, which makes them the most tempting wrong answers. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was not on the Drafting Committee; he chaired the Provincial Constitution Committee and the Advisory Committee on Fundamental Rights, Minorities and Tribal and Excluded Areas. Learn the full list of seven members too, because a common variant asks which name was not a member: Ambedkar, N. Gopalaswamy Ayyangar, Alladi Krishnaswamy Ayyar, K.M. Munshi, Syed Mohammad Saadullah, N. Madhava Rau and T.T. Krishnamachari.