UPSC Civil Services GK Questions 2026

Judicial review, together with the independence of the judiciary, the removal of judges by impeachment, the written preamble and Fundamental Rights, is among the features the makers of the Indian Constitution took from the American system, where the Supreme Court asserted the power in Marbury v. Madison in 1803.

In Minerva Mills v. Union of India the Supreme Court struck down the provisions inserted by the 42nd Amendment Act of 1976 which had declared that no constitutional amendment could be called in question in any court and had given Parliament unlimited amending power, holding that both judicial review and…

Article 226 empowers every High Court to issue directions, orders or writs, including the five writs, for the enforcement of Fundamental Rights and for any other purpose, and that last phrase is what makes the High Court's writ jurisdiction wider than the Supreme Court's. Option A is wrong because Article…

Quo warranto, meaning by what authority, asks a person occupying a public office to show the legal basis of the claim to it, and because an unlawful occupation of public office is a public wrong, the courts allow any interested person to apply, not merely one who has suffered a…

Mandamus means we command, and it is issued to a public body or official to perform a public duty that it has refused to perform.

Prohibition means to forbid. It is issued by a superior court to a lower court or a tribunal to stop it from continuing with a proceeding that lies beyond its jurisdiction, so by its nature it can be directed only at bodies exercising judicial or quasi-judicial functions, never at an…

Article 32 guarantees the right to move the Supreme Court for the enforcement of Fundamental Rights and empowers the Court to issue directions, orders and writs for that purpose, which is why it is titled the right to constitutional remedies and why Dr B. R. Ambedkar described it as the…

Habeas corpus can be issued by the Supreme Court under Article 32, where it is a remedy for the breach of the Fundamental Right to personal liberty, and by every High Court under Article 226, which covers Fundamental Rights and any other purpose as well.

Certiorari is Latin for to be certified or to be informed, and the writ does exactly that: a higher court calls up the record of a case from a lower court or tribunal, either to transfer the matter to itself or to quash an order already passed because of excess…

Nagabhata I founded the Gurjara-Pratihara dynasty in the eighth century in the region of Malwa and Rajasthan and is remembered for checking the Arab advance from Sindh, a success the inscriptions describe in heroic terms.

Pulakeshin I founded the Chalukya dynasty of Badami in the middle of the sixth century, made Vatapi, the modern Badami in Karnataka, his capital, and performed the Ashvamedha sacrifice.

The Satavahanas, who rose in the Deccan after the Mauryas, were founded by Simuka and ruled from Pratishthana, the modern Paithan on the Godavari in Maharashtra; their greatest king, Gautamiputra Satakarni, is praised in the Nashik inscription of his mother Gautami Balashri.

Gopala was elected ruler by the chiefs of Bengal in about 750 CE, ending a long period of disorder known in the sources as matsyanyaya, and founded the Pala dynasty, which became one of the three contenders in the tripartite struggle for Kannauj.

Pushyamitra Shunga, the commander of the Mauryan army, killed the last Mauryan ruler Brihadratha in about 185 BCE and founded the Shunga dynasty, which ruled from Pataliputra and Vidisha and under which the Sanchi and Bharhut stupas were enlarged.

Sri Gupta, who bore the modest title Maharaja, is named in the inscriptions as the founder of the Gupta family, and he was followed by his son Ghatotkacha.

Mahapadma Nanda founded the Nanda dynasty in about the middle of the fourth century BCE after displacing the Shishunagas, and the Puranas call him Ekarat, the sole sovereign, and Sarva-kshatrantaka, the destroyer of all Kshatriyas, because he is described as a ruler of low birth who uprooted the older ruling…

The Buddhist text Mahaparinibbana Sutta and the Jaina tradition credit Ajatashatru of the Haryanka dynasty with two engines used in his long war against the Lichchhavis of Vaishali: the Mahashilakantaka, which hurled great stones, and the Rathamusala, a chariot fitted with a mace that swept down ranks of soldiers.

Kanchipuram in northern Tamil Nadu was the Pallava capital from about the fourth century until the dynasty fell to the Cholas in the ninth, and it was there that Hiuen Tsang was received by Narasimhavarman I and that the Kailasanatha temple was raised by Narasimhavarman II Rajasimha.

Mahendravarman I ruled the Pallava kingdom from Kanchipuram in the early seventh century, fought Pulakeshin II of Badami, began the rock-cut mandapas of the Tamil country and bore the titles Vichitrachitta and Mattavilasa, the second being the name of the Sanskrit farce attributed to him.

Vijayalaya, who founded the line of the imperial Cholas in the middle of the ninth century, captured the Kaveri delta from the Muttaraiyar chiefs and built Thanjavur, which became the Chola capital and later the site of Rajaraja I's Brihadeeswara temple.