Constitutional Developments & Acts MCQs for UPSC Prelims

Correct answer: A - 1 and 2 only

The Charter Act of 1813 opened the Indian trade to all British merchants while preserving the Company's monopoly over the tea trade and trade with China, so statement 1 is correct. It also expressly asserted, for the first time, the sovereignty of the British Crown over the Company's Indian territories, making statement 2 correct. Statement 3 is wrong: the Act did not transfer control of Indian revenues to Parliament; the Company continued to manage revenues, and parliamentary control of Indian finances came only after the Government of India Act, 1858. Hence only statements 1 and 2 are correct.

Correct answer: D - India should be given Dominion status

The Cripps Mission of 1942 offered India Dominion status after the war, with a constitution-making body elected by provincial legislatures and the controversial provision allowing provinces to opt out of the proposed union. It explicitly stopped short of promising complete independence, which is why the Congress rejected it and Gandhi famously described it as a post-dated cheque. Partition was not part of the Cripps proposals, and republic status within the Commonwealth was the formula India itself adopted later in 1949-50, not something Cripps offered.

Correct answer: B - 2 only

Under the 1942 Cripps proposals, members of the constitution-making body from British India were to be elected by the lower houses of the Provincial Assemblies, while only the Princely States would send nominated representatives; statement 1 wrongly says provincial members too would be nominated, so it is incorrect. The proposals did contain the controversial non-accession clause, allowing any province unwilling to accept the new constitution to stay out and negotiate its own arrangement with Britain, which implicitly conceded the basis for partition, so statement 2 is correct. The answer is 2 only.

Correct answer: B - imprisonment without trial and summary procedures for trial

The Rowlatt Act of 1919 (Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act) empowered the government to imprison suspects without trial and to hold trials without juries or normal judicial safeguards, so option (b) is correct. It was not about economic war support, was passed before the Khilafat agitation as a general repressive measure rather than to crush that specific movement, and press restrictions were governed by separate press legislation, so (a), (c) and (d) are wrong.

Correct answer: B - 1 and 2 only

The Rowlatt Act of 1919 grew out of the report of the Sedition Committee chaired by Justice Sidney Rowlatt, so statement 1 is correct. For the Satyagraha against it, Gandhi formed the Satyagraha Sabha and consciously drew on existing networks, including the Home Rule Leagues, to mobilise protest, making statement 2 correct. Statement 3 is chronologically impossible: the Simon Commission arrived in India in 1928, nearly a decade after the Rowlatt agitation of 1919, so the two sets of demonstrations could not have coincided. Hence 1 and 2 only.

Correct answer: D - None of the statements (a), (b) and (c) given above is correct

The answer is (d) because none of the listed reasons is correct. The Congress ministries formed after the 1937 provincial elections resigned in October-November 1939 because the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, declared India a belligerent in the Second World War without consulting Indian opinion, and the British refused to give assurances about independence after the war. Option (a) is factually irrelevant to the resignations, option (b) misstates the role of the Congress left wing which did not cause the ministries to quit, and option (c) is wrong because widespread communal disturbances were not the trigger.

Correct answer: A - 1 only

The Cabinet Mission of 1946 proposed a Union of India embracing British provinces and princely states, with the Union handling only foreign affairs, defence and communications and all residual subjects vesting in the provinces, which were free to form groups. This three-tier scheme was in essence a recommendation for a federal government, so statement 1 is correct. The Mission's brief was the transfer of power and the constitution-making machinery; it said nothing about enlarging the jurisdiction of Indian courts, so statement 2 is wrong. Nor did it deal with recruitment quotas or Indianisation of the ICS, a process associated with earlier reforms like the Lee Commission, so statement 3 is also wrong.

Correct answer: C - 3-2-1

The correct order is the Second Round Table Conference (1931), then the launch of the Quit India Movement (August 1942), then the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny (February 1946), which is sequence 3-2-1. The other options misorder these dates; for instance, the RIN Mutiny came last, not first, ruling out 1-2-3 and 2-1-3, and the Quit India Movement preceded the RIN Mutiny, ruling out 3-1-2.