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SSC CGL Indian Constitution — Basics

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This page covers SSC CGL Indian Constitution — Basics with complete concept notes, 29 graded practice MCQs, key points and exam-specific tips. Free to study.

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Concept Notes

Indian Constitution — Basics— Rules & Concept

1.Core Concept

Read this first — the foundation of the topic

INDIAN CONSTITUTION — BASICS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

CORE CONCEPT — WHAT IS THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The Constitution is the supreme law of India. It is the rulebook of the country. Every other law must follow it. If any law goes against the Constitution, it is cancelled. The Constitution tells us how the government works, what rights citizens have, and what duties they must follow. India's Constitution was made by the Constituent Assembly. This body had 389 members at first. After partition, the number became 299. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was the Chairman of the Drafting Committee. That is why he is called the Father of the Indian Constitution.

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2.Key Rules

Core rules you must know cold
1

The Constituent Assembly first met on 9 December 1946.

2

The Constitution was adopted on 26 November 1949. This day is celebrated as Constitution Day (also called National Law Day).

3

The Constitution came into effect on 26 January 1950. This is celebrated as Republic Day.

4

The original Constitution had 395 Articles, 8 Schedules, and 22 Parts.

5

Currently the Constitution has 448 Articles, 12 Schedules, and 25 Parts (after all amendments).

6

It took 2 years, 11 months, and 18 days to make the Constitution.

7

India borrowed ideas from many countries. This is called the 'Bag of Borrowings.'

3.Memory Hook

Remember this — never confuse the two again

TRICK ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Remember the KEY DATES like this: 9 Dec 1946 → First Meeting of Constituent Assembly 26 Nov 1949 → Adopted (Remember: Nov = kNoW the law) 26 Jan 1950 → Enforced (Republic Day) Time taken = 2 years + 11 months + 18 days (remember as 2-11-18) Original Structure = 395 Articles + 8 Schedules + 22 Parts Current Structure = 448 Articles + 12 Schedules + 25 Parts ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SOURCES OF THE CONSTITUTION — BORROWED FEATURES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ India borrowed from many constitutions. Use the trick: USA-UK-IRE-CAN-AUS-JAP-GER-SA-FR-USSR Top Borrowings to remember for SSC: • UK → Parliamentary system, Rule of Law, Single Citizenship, Speaker in Lok Sabha • USA → Fundamental Rights, Judicial Review, Independence of Judiciary, Preamble idea • Ireland → Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP) • Canada → Federal system with strong Centre, Residuary powers with Centre • Australia → Concurrent List, Joint sitting of Parliament • Weimar Germany → Emergency provisions • South Africa → Amendment procedure (Article 368), Election of Rajya Sabha members • USSR → Fundamental Duties (Article 51A) • Japan → Procedure established by law • France → Republic, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (from Preamble)

4.Shortcuts

Use these to save 30–60 seconds per question

— IRELAND gave us DPSP. Remember: Ireland = I Deserve Proper Support (IDPS → DPSP). ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

5.Exam Patterns

What examiners ask — read before attempting PYQs

— HOW SSC ASKS QUESTIONS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SSC CGL repeats these question types: 1. Which country's Constitution did India borrow DPSP from? 2. Who was the Chairman of the Drafting Committee? 3. When was the Constitution adopted vs. when did it come into force? 4.

How many Articles/Schedules in the original Constitution? 5. How long did it take to frame the Constitution? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

6.Worked Example

Solve this step-by-step before moving on
1
Step 1

Recall the two important dates — Adopted vs Enforced.

2
Step 2

Adopted = 26 November 1949. Enforced = 26 January 1950.

3
Step 3

The question says 'adopted' — so answer is 26 November 1949. Answer: (C) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORKED EXAMPLE 2 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Question: The concept of Directive Principles of State Policy in the Indian Constitution was borrowed from which country? (A) USA (B) UK (C) Ireland (D) Canada

1
Step 1

Use the DPSP trick — Ireland = I Deserve Proper Support.

2
Step 2

DPSP was inspired by the Irish Constitution of 1937.

3
Step 3

Ireland gave India DPSP. Answer: (C) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

7.Exam Traps

Common mistakes students make — avoid these

— THE #1 TRAP ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Most students confuse 26 November 1949 with 26 January 1950. Remember: The Constitution was COMPLETED and ADOPTED on 26 Nov 1949. It became ACTIVE (enforced) on 26 Jan 1950. SSC deliberately puts both dates as options.

If the question says 'adopted' or 'passed' — answer is 26 Nov 1949. If the question says 'came into force' or 'enforced' — answer is 26 Jan 1950.

Key Points to Remember

  • The Constitution is the supreme law of India — all other laws must follow it.
  • Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was Chairman of the Drafting Committee — called Father of the Indian Constitution.
  • Constituent Assembly first met on 9 December 1946.
  • TRICK — Adopted = 26 Nov 1949 (kNOVember = kNOW the law); Enforced = 26 Jan 1950 (Republic Day).
  • Time taken to frame the Constitution = 2 years, 11 months, 18 days (remember as 2-11-18).
  • Original Constitution = 395 Articles + 8 Schedules + 22 Parts; Current = 448 Articles + 12 Schedules + 25 Parts.
  • TRICK — Ireland gave DPSP: remember 'I Deserve Proper Support' (Ireland = DPSP).
  • Fundamental Rights were borrowed from the USA; Parliamentary system from the UK.
  • Emergency provisions were borrowed from the Weimar Constitution of Germany.
  • Concurrent List and Joint Sitting of Parliament were borrowed from Australia.

Exam-Specific Tips

  • Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was the Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constituent Assembly.
  • The Constitution was adopted on 26 November 1949 — celebrated as Constitution Day / National Law Day.
  • The Constitution came into force on 26 January 1950 — celebrated as Republic Day.
  • The original Constitution had 395 Articles, 8 Schedules, and 22 Parts.
  • The Constituent Assembly took 2 years, 11 months, and 18 days to draft the Constitution.
  • Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP) were borrowed from the Irish (Ireland) Constitution.
  • Fundamental Rights were borrowed from the Constitution of the USA.
  • The concept of Fundamental Duties (Article 51A) was borrowed from the Constitution of the USSR.
  • The Constituent Assembly had 299 members at the time of drafting (reduced from 389 after partition).
  • The Preamble to the Indian Constitution was amended only once — by the 42nd Amendment Act of 1976, which added the words 'Socialist', 'Secular', and 'Integrity'.
Practice MCQs

Indian Constitution — Basics — Practice Questions

29graded MCQs · easy to hard · full solution & trap analysis · showing 20 of 29

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Practice 1easy

Article 51A of the Indian Constitution, introduced by the 42nd Amendment, lists the Fundamental Duties. Which of the following is NOT a Fundamental Duty?

Practice 2easy

Under Article 12 of the Indian Constitution, the term 'State' includes all of the following EXCEPT:

Practice 3easy

The 44th Amendment to the Indian Constitution (1978) is primarily known for:

Practice 4easy

Which of the following is NOT a Fundamental Right under the Indian Constitution?

Practice 5easy

Which part of the Indian Constitution contains the Fundamental Rights?

Practice 6easy

Under which Article of the Indian Constitution can a citizen move the Supreme Court for the enforcement of Fundamental Rights?

Practice 7easy

Which Article of the Indian Constitution guarantees the Right to Life and Personal Liberty?

Practice 8easy

The 42nd Constitutional Amendment is historically significant because it introduced which of the following?

Practice 9easy

The 42nd Amendment to the Indian Constitution, passed in 1976, is historically significant because it:

Practice 10medium

Which of the following Fundamental Rights is protected under Article 19 of the Indian Constitution?

Practice 11medium

The 44th Amendment to the Indian Constitution removed which Fundamental Right from the list of Fundamental Rights?

Practice 12medium

The 42nd Amendment to the Indian Constitution, passed in 1976, is often called the 'Mini Constitution' because it made sweeping changes. Which of the following was NOT a change introduced by the 42nd Amendment?

Practice 13medium

The 44th Amendment to the Indian Constitution (1978) made several important changes. Which of the following was a key change introduced by the 44th Amendment?

Practice 14medium

Under Article 32 of the Indian Constitution, which of the following is NOT a writ that can be issued by the Supreme Court for enforcement of Fundamental Rights?

Practice 15medium

Which of the following Fundamental Duties was added to the Indian Constitution by the 42nd Amendment through Article 51A?

Practice 16medium

Article 51A of the Indian Constitution, introduced by the 42nd Amendment, lists Fundamental Duties. How many Fundamental Duties are currently listed in Article 51A?

Practice 17medium

The 42nd Amendment to the Indian Constitution, passed in 1976, is often called the 'Mini Constitution' because it made significant changes. Which of the following was NOT a change introduced by the 42nd Amendment?

Practice 18medium

Which Article of the Indian Constitution guarantees the Right to Equality before the law and equal protection of the laws to all citizens?

Practice 19medium

Which Article of the Indian Constitution guarantees the Right to Constitutional Remedies, making it the 'heart and soul' of the Constitution as described by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar?

Practice 20hard

The 101st Amendment Act of 2016 inserted Article 300A (Right to Food Security) into the Indian Constitution. Which of the following correctly identifies what this amendment primarily addressed?

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60-Second Revision — Indian Constitution — Basics

  • Remember: ADOPTED = 26 Nov 1949 (Constitution Day); ENFORCED = 26 Jan 1950 (Republic Day) — SSC's #1 trap question.
  • Remember: Father of the Constitution = Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (Chairman of Drafting Committee, NOT President of Constituent Assembly — that was Dr. Rajendra Prasad).
  • Formula: Time to frame = 2 years, 11 months, 18 days. Original = 395 Articles, 8 Schedules, 22 Parts.
  • Trick: Ireland = DPSP | USA = Fundamental Rights | UK = Parliamentary System | Germany = Emergency | Australia = Concurrent List.
  • Trap: Do NOT confuse 'adopted' with 'enforced'. Adopted = Nov 1949. Enforced = Jan 1950.
  • Remember: 42nd Amendment 1976 added Socialist, Secular, and Integrity to the Preamble.
  • Trick: Constituent Assembly first met = 9 Dec 1946. President of Assembly = Dr. Rajendra Prasad. Chairman of Drafting Committee = Dr. B.R. Ambedkar.
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