RAS question
How many Schedules does the Indian Constitution currently have?
Correct answer: (A) 12.
The Indian Constitution currently has 12 Schedules.
Explanation
The answer is 12 because the Constitution no longer has only the eight Schedules with which it began. The official Legislative Department text of the Constitution, updated as on 1 May 2024, carries the sequence through the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Schedules. The existing amendment history explains the count: the Ninth Schedule came through the First Amendment, the Tenth through the Fifty-second Amendment, the Eleventh through the Seventy-third Amendment and the Twelfth through the Seventy-fourth Amendment. That is why 8 is the original count, while 12 is the current count an exam answer must use.
Why the other options are wrong
- (B) 14 is wrong because the Constitution's schedule sequence in the official text runs only up to the Twelfth Schedule, not a Fourteenth Schedule.
- (C) 10 is wrong because it stops after the Tenth Schedule and ignores the Eleventh and Twelfth Schedules added later.
- (D) 8 is wrong for the present Constitution because eight was the original number of Schedules, before four later Schedules were added.
Concept
This tests basic constitutional structure: how the Schedules of the Indian Constitution have expanded through amendments. It recurs in RAS because polity questions often check whether candidates know both the original constitutional design and the current amended position.