Mumbai University Solved Question Papers
Indian Constitutional Law New Challenges
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
LLM · Foundation Course
2016 Examination
munotes.in
Mumbai
LLM Foundation Course Indian Constitutional Law New Challenges 2016 Question Paper with Solutions
MU LLM student group
Free to join
First published on munotes.in on 12 August 2026.
Published by munotes.in, Mumbai.
Model answers written and edited by the munotes.in editorial desk.
Passages from this volume may be quoted, in print, online or by an AI system, with credit: name munotes.in and link to this volume's page. The volume may not be reproduced as a whole. Full terms at munotes.in/content-license.
munotes.in is an independent study resource for students of the University of Mumbai. It is not affiliated with the University of Mumbai, and is not endorsed by it.
The University does not publish an official answer key for this paper. The answers in this volume are model answers, written to show how a full-mark answer is built. They are a study aid, not an authority on what an examiner marked.
The question paper reproduced here is the paper as set by the University of Mumbai at the 2016 examination.
The answers in this volume state the law as it stands today, not as it stood when the paper was set, and in this subject the difference is large. Five changes alter answers here. Aligarh Muslim University v. Naresh Agarwal, 8 November 2024, overruled Azeez Basha on the minority status of an institution incorporated by statute. State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh, 1 August 2024, permitted sub-classification within the Scheduled Castes. The Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023 replaced the appointment committee directed in Anoop Baranwal. The Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act, 2023 came into force on 16 April 2026 and is not yet operative. And the advisory opinion of 20 November 2025 held that no timeline may be set for assent to a Bill. Where a provision has since been replaced, the answer gives the position then and now, and says which is which.
Contents
The questions below are the paper as the University of Mumbai set it at the 2016 examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2016 examination, reproduced as the University of Mumbai set them, in the order it set them. Nothing has been reworded, added or left out. Only the answers are ours. See the original question paper.
Duration 3 hours · Total marks 100 · 7 questions answered
How to use this volume
Solve the paper first, under exam conditions and against the clock. Then read the answers here and mark your own. Reading a solution before attempting the question feels productive and teaches very little, because recognising an answer is not the same as being able to write one.
SECTION I
Answer any four questions, all questions carry equal marks
any four of seven · 100 Marks
1)Explain tests to determine whether a body is an agency or instrumentality of the Government under Art. 12 of the Constitution. Discuss with the help of judicial pronouncements. -[25]
Answer
For full marks, cover: the text of Article 12 and where the phrase "agency or instrumentality" comes from; the R.D. Shetty indicia and the Ajay Hasia restatement, set out as a list; the Pradeep Kumar Biswas consolidation, which is the test today; the negative cases that show what the tests exclude; and the two doctrines that now supplement Article 12.
Where the phrase comes from. Article 12 includes within "the State", for the purposes of Part III, the Government and Parliament of India, the Governments and Legislatures of the States, all local authorities and other authorities within the territory of India or under the control of the Government of India. The words "agency or instrumentality" appear nowhere in the Article. They come from Sukhdev Singh v. Bhagatram Sardar Singh Raghuvanshi (1975) 1 SCC 421, where Mathew J., concurring, held that a public corporation is an agency or instrumentality of the State, and that the State cannot escape its constitutional obligations by the device of creating a corporation. The whole body of testing that follows is an attempt to give that idea a workable content.
The tests were first listed in Ramana Dayaram Shetty v. International Airport Authority of India (1979) 3 SCC 489. Bhagwati J. set out five indicia:
- the entire share capital of the body is held by government;
- the body enjoys financial assistance from the State meeting almost the whole of its expenditure;
- the body enjoys a monopoly status conferred or protected by the State;
- there is deep and pervasive State control; and
- the functions of the body are of public importance and closely related to governmental functions.
To these he added a sixth, taken from Sukhdev Singh: whether a department of government has been transferred to the body.
Ajay Hasia v. Khalid Mujib Sehravardi (1981) 1 SCC 722 restated those tests and added the point that matters most. The Court held that the tests apply irrespective of the legal character of the body, so a society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 running a regional engineering college was held to be State. The formulation to quote is that the enquiry is not how the juristic person is born but why it has been brought into existence, and that a corporation may be an instrumentality of the State whether it is created by statute or under a statute. The Court also warned that the tests are not conclusive but illustrative, and must be used cumulatively.
They were applied in the following decade to a government company in Som Prakash Rekhi v. Union of India (1981) 1 SCC 449, to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research in P.K. Ramachandra Iyer v. Union of India (1984) 2 SCC 141, and to a State-aided institution in Tekraj Vasandi v. Union of India (1988) 1 SCC 236, where the Institute of Constitutional and Parliamentary Studies was held not to be State, showing that the tests do exclude.
The consolidation, and the test as it stands today, is Pradeep Kumar Biswas v. Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (2002) 5 SCC 111, a bench of seven which overruled Sabhajit Tewary v. Union of India (1975) 1 SCC 485 and held the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research to be State. The Court restated the enquiry in a single composite question:
Is the body financially, functionally and administratively dominated by, or under the control of, the Government; is that control particular to the body; and is it pervasive?
Three riders were added and each is examinable. Control that is merely regulatory, whether under statute or otherwise, will not make a body State. The tests in Ajay Hasia are not a rigid formula but indicia to be applied cumulatively. And the enquiry is one of substance, so form, funding label and nomenclature do not decide it.
The negative cases show the boundary and must be given. In Zee Telefilms Ltd. v. Union of India (2005) 4 SCC 649 the Board of Control for Cricket in India was held not to be State: not created by statute, no government shareholding, no financial assistance, no State-conferred monopoly, no pervasive control, notwithstanding that it enjoys a monopoly in fact and selects the national team. In Federal Bank Ltd. v. Sagar Thomas (2003) 10 SCC 733 a private bank was held not to be State despite detailed Reserve Bank regulation, on the same ground: regulation is not control. And in K.K. Saksena v. International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (2015) 4 SCC 670 the Court held that a body may be amenable to Article 226 for the discharge of a public duty without being State for Article 12.
Two supplements to the tests, because Article 12 alone no longer covers the field. First, the public function doctrine: Andi Mukta Sadguru Trust v. V.R. Rudani (1989) 2 SCC 691 holds that mandamus lies under Article 226 against any person or body performing a public duty, whatever its constitutional character, and Zee Telefilms preserved that remedy expressly. Second, horizontality: Kaushal Kishor v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2023) 4 SCC 1 held by 4:1 that the rights under Articles 19 and 21 are enforceable against non-State actors, which reduces the practical importance of the Article 12 enquiry for two of the most litigated rights in Part III. Both post-date this paper and both are essential to a current answer.
Conclusion. The tests for agency or instrumentality began as a list of six indicia in R.D. Shetty, were made independent of legal form in Ajay Hasia, and were consolidated by seven judges in Pradeep Kumar Biswas into a single question of financial, functional and administrative domination, particular to the body and pervasive. The direction of the development was steadily outward until 2002 and has been flat since, because Zee Telefilms held that power and monopoly are not substitutes for control. That is a defensible line, but it was drawn for an economy in which the State owned the commanding heights, and as the State withdraws the tests catch fewer bodies each year while the public character of what those bodies do is unchanged. The courts' answer has not been to loosen the tests but to build beside them, through the public function jurisdiction under Article 226 and the horizontal reach of Articles 19 and 21.
The rest of the answers
The first answer is free. The rest come with the solved papers for your group.
You have read the question paper and its first answer in full. Buy the solved papers once and you can read every answer of every solved paper in this semester. Choose your group on the next page.
Notes + Solved papers: ₹798 Already bought it? Sign in
Or solved papers only: ₹499
Or notes only: ₹499
The question paper itself stays free, as does the syllabus and module one of every subject.
Found an error in this volume? Report it and we will check it against the paper.