B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) Sem 4 Constitutional Law II 2024 Mar Question Paper with Solutions

The Union first tried to give local bodies constitutional status in 1989, through the 64th (Panchayats) and 65th (Municipalities) Amendment Bills. Both failed in the Rajya Sabha. A fresh effort produced two Acts. The Constitution (Seventy-third Amendment) Act, 1992 came into force on 24 April 1993. The Constitution (Seventy-fourth Amendment) Act, 1992 came into force on 1 June 1993.

The 73rd Amendment inserted Part IX (articles 243 to 243-O) and the Eleventh Schedule. The 74th inserted Part IX-A (articles 243P to 243ZG) and the Twelfth Schedule. The two Parts are built on the same plan, so their features are best read together.

Salient features

1. Constitutional status. Local bodies are now required by the Constitution itself. Article 243B says Panchayats "shall be constituted in every State", and article 243Q says the same of Municipalities. A State may shape them by law but cannot do without them.

5. Reservation. Seats are reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in proportion to their population (articles 243D and 243T). Not less than one-third of all seats, including the reserved seats, are reserved for women. The offices of chairpersons are also reserved, as State law provides. A State may reserve seats and posts for backward classes. The reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes ends with the period in article 334, but that for women carries no such limit.

6. Fixed five-year term. Every Panchayat and Municipality has a term of five years from its first meeting (articles 243E and 243U). It may be dissolved earlier, and a Municipality must first be given a hearing (proviso to article 243U(1)). Elections must be completed before the term ends, or within six months of a dissolution. A body formed after early dissolution serves only the remainder of the term. And no amendment of a State law can cut short the term of a body already functioning (articles 243E(2) and 243U(2)).

7. Disqualification. A person disqualified for the State Legislature is disqualified for a local body too (articles 243F and 243V). The one difference is that the minimum age is twenty-one, not twenty-five. The State Legislature may add further disqualifications by its own law.

13. Planning committees. A District Planning Committee in every district consolidates rural and urban plans (article 243ZD). At least four-fifths of its members are elected from the district Panchayat and the Municipalities. Every metropolitan area of ten lakhs or more has a Metropolitan Planning Committee (article 243ZE).

14. Bar on courts in electoral matters. Laws on delimitation and allotment of seats cannot be questioned in any court. A local election can be challenged only by an election petition under State law (articles 243-O and 243ZG).

15. Areas left out. Part IX does not apply to the Scheduled and tribal areas, or to Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram (article 243M). Parliament may extend it to such areas by law. It did so for Fifth Schedule areas by the Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996. Part IX-A has a similar provision (article 243ZC).

16. Transition. Existing local laws inconsistent with the new Parts could last at most one year (articles 243N and 243ZF). Every State therefore had to bring its law into line by 1994.

In Vikas Kishanrao Gawali v. State of Maharashtra, (2021) 6 SCC 73, a Maharashtra law fixed a uniform twenty-seven per cent backward class quota in every district and intermediate Panchayat. In several bodies total reservation crossed fifty per cent. The Court read the provision down. It required a triple test: a dedicated commission, a quota fixed body by body on its findings, and an overall ceiling of fifty per cent.

In Rajbala v. State of Haryana, decided on 10 December 2015, a Haryana law set new conditions for panchayat candidates. They needed a minimum level of schooling and a functional toilet at home. They also had to be free of arrears to co-operative banks and of unpaid electricity bills. Two judges upheld these conditions. Article 243F(1)(b) lets the State Legislature add disqualifications, and the Court did not find these irrational.

In Javed v. State of Haryana, (2003) 8 SCC 369, three judges upheld a law disqualifying a person with more than two living children from panchayat office. The Court treated it as a valid family planning measure. In August 2026 a bench of the Supreme Court reserved judgment on whether Javed needs reconsideration, so that question is open.

Assessment

The amendments achieved what forty years of State law had not. Local bodies now exist everywhere, are elected on time and include lakhs of women and members of weaker sections. But the Constitution only permits the States to devolve powers and funds, it does not compel them. Many States have handed over few of the scheduled subjects, appoint Finance Commissions late, and run parallel bodies through their own officers. The structure is constitutional, but its substance still depends on each State.

Conclusion. The 73rd and 74th Amendments made local self-government a constitutional tier of Indian democracy. Their salient features are compulsory bodies, direct elections, reservation for weaker sections and women, a fixed term, and independent Election and Finance Commissions. They also provide planning committees and a bar on courts in electoral matters. Kishansing Tomar enforces the timetable, Krishna Murthy and Gawali fix the limits of reservation, and Rajbala and Javed show the States' power over qualifications. Real decentralisation now turns on how much power and money each State chooses to transfer.