UPSC Prelims 2017 · Question 76 of 99
UPSC Prelims 2017 question on Private Members Bill
- ExamUPSC CSE
- Year2017
- PaperGeneral Studies Paper I
- SubjectPolity
- TopicParliament
- DifficultyHard
- TypeStatement
With reference to the Parliament of India, consider the following statements:
1. A private member’s bill is a bill presented by a Member of Parliament who is not elected but only nominated by the President of India.
2. Recently, a private member’s bill has been passed in the Parliament of India for the first time in its history.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Show answer
Answer: D. Neither 1 nor 2
Verdict
The answer is neither 1 nor 2. A private member is any member other than a minister, and a private member's bill had been passed before, though not for decades.
Analysis
Statement 1 is INCORRECT. A private member's bill is introduced by any Member of Parliament other than a minister, whether elected or nominated, and its drafting is the responsibility of the member concerned, with one month's notice required for introduction. Statement 2 is INCORRECT. The last private member's bill passed by Parliament was the Supreme Court (Enlargement of Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction) Bill of 1968, which became an Act in 1970, so the Rights of Transgender Persons Bill passed by the Rajya Sabha in 2015 was not the first in the country's history.
Source
M. Laxmikanth on Parliament, with press reporting on the transgender persons bill.
How to crack it
The word private in private member's bill contrasts with minister, not with elected, so the definition itself refutes statement 1. Then treat any first in history claim about a long standing parliamentary practice with suspicion, since seventy years of legislative history rarely leaves such a slot empty. The accurate framing, first in forty five years, is precisely the kind of qualifier UPSC removes to create a false statement.