Twelve States Carry Their Own Constitutional Provisions in Articles 371 to 371J, From Naga Customary Law to a Job Quota for Karnataka's Hyderabad Region

Twelve of India’s 28 states are named in Articles 371 to 371J of the Constitution, and the Law Ministry’s edition current to 1 May 2024 prints all eleven articles. Nagaland and Mizoram can keep Acts of Parliament on their customary law out until their own Assemblies agree. Karnataka can reserve seats and government posts for people from its Hyderabad region. Goa’s Assembly may not have fewer than 30 members.

The articles sit in Part XXI, which the Constitution headed “Temporary and Transitional Provisions” until the Thirteenth Amendment added the word “Special”, with effect from 1 December 1963. The original Article 371 of 1950 gave the President general control over the Part B states for ten years, and the Seventh Amendment replaced it on 1 November 1956. The lettered articles came afterwards, one at a time, each following an agreement or a reorganisation of territory. They protect four kinds of thing, taken in turn below.

Nagaland and Mizoram keep Parliament’s laws on custom and land out until their Assemblies agree

Article 371A, added by the Thirteenth Amendment Act of 1962, took effect on 1 December 1963. It says no Act of Parliament on four matters applies to Nagaland “unless the Legislative Assembly of Nagaland by a resolution so decides”. The four are the religious or social practices of the Nagas, Naga customary law and procedure, the administration of civil and criminal justice where decisions follow Naga customary law, and the ownership and transfer of land and its resources.

The text grew out of a negotiation. Nagaland’s information department says the 16-point agreement, the basis for statehood, was signed with the Naga People’s Convention on 26 July 1960. The same department published an advisor’s speech of 5 May 2023 saying the agreement was never accepted as a final political solution and that its signatories lacked a popular mandate. Clause (1)(b) also gives the Governor a special responsibility for law and order for as long as the disturbances that preceded statehood continue. He consults the Council of Ministers but exercises “his individual judgment”.

Mizoram’s Article 371G came from the memorandum of settlement signed on 30 June 1986 by the Government of India, the Government of Mizoram and the Mizo National Front. The Fifty-third Amendment Act, assented to on 14 August 1986 and in force from 20 February 1987, copies the Nagaland formula for Mizo practices, Mizo customary law, customary justice, and “ownership and transfer of land”. It leaves out the words “and its resources” and exempts any central Act already in force in the Union territory of Mizoram. Clause (b) requires an Assembly of “not less than forty members”.

Nagaland’s clause has been tested on two fronts. The speech of 5 May 2023 says legal opinions in the 1980s read “land and its resources” to include mines and minerals, and that the Assembly resolved on 26 July 2010 that Parliament’s petroleum laws would not apply in the state. It then quotes a Union Home Ministry memorandum holding that Article 371A(a) “does not confer legislative power” over mineral oil, a position the speech disputes.

The second test was a women’s quota. The State Election Commission notified urban local body elections on 9 March 2023, and in the same month the 60-member Assembly repealed the Nagaland Municipal Act of 2001 in full, citing concerns that it conflicted with Article 371A, EastMojo reports. On 25 July 2023, Justices S. K. Kaul and Sudhansu Dhulia recorded that Nagaland’s personal laws and its special status under Article 371A(1) were “not being touched in any manner”, the Morung Express reports. The Assembly passed a new Municipal Bill on 9 November 2023. Polling followed on 26 June 2024, the first municipal election in 20 years and the first with 33 per cent of seats reserved for women, All India Radio reported.

Assam and Manipur give tribal and hill members a committee of their own

Article 371B lets the President set up, by order, a committee of the Assam Legislative Assembly made up of members elected from the tribal areas listed in Part I of the table to paragraph 20 of the Sixth Schedule, plus other members the order names. Those areas are the autonomous districts of the Sixth Schedule. The Twenty-second Amendment Act put the article in force on 25 September 1969. Its Statement of Objects and Reasons, signed by Y. B. Chavan on 12 November 1968, ties it to a scheme the Government of India announced on 11 September 1968 for an autonomous state inside Assam.

Article 371C, in force from 15 February 1972, does the same for Manipur and adds more. The President’s order sets up a committee of Assembly members elected from the “Hill Areas”, a term the President defines by order, and may change the Assembly’s rules and give the Governor a special responsibility for the committee. The Governor must report to the President every year on how those areas are run, and the Union’s executive power “shall extend to the giving of directions to the State” on their administration.

The Manipur Legislative Assembly (Hill Areas Committee) Order of 20 June 1972 fills in the detail, according to an account published by the Hmar Students’ Association, Churachandpur. The committee consists of the members who represent constituencies wholly or partly in the Hill Areas, and the Chief Minister and the Speaker are excluded.

Five states write regional fairness in jobs, schools and funds into the Constitution

The oldest is Article 371(2). Reworded for Maharashtra and Gujarat by the Bombay Reorganisation Act, in force from 1 May 1960, it lets the President give the Governor a special responsibility for separate development boards, for the “equitable allocation of funds for developmental expenditure”, and for technical education and state jobs. The regions are Vidarbha, Marathwada and the rest of Maharashtra, and Saurashtra, Kutch and the rest of Gujarat. Each board’s report goes to the Legislative Assembly every year.

A Presidential order of 9 March 1994 directed three boards for Maharashtra, and the Governor constituted them on 25 June 1994, the Governor’s Secretariat records. The Hitavada reported that their term, extended from 30 April 2015, ended on 30 April 2020.

Article 371D has the most detailed history. Andhra Pradesh was formed on 1 November 1956 from Andhra and Hyderabad territories. The Telangana part had Mulki Rules, which required residence for public jobs. Parliament’s Public Employment (Requirement as to Residence) Act of 1957 set a residence rule for public jobs in the new state, but on 28 March 1969 the Supreme Court held its Section 3 invalid as applied to Telangana. Agitations in Telangana and in Andhra followed from 1969 to 1972, and on 21 September 1973 the state’s political leaders agreed the Six Point Formula. The Thirty-second Amendment, in force from 1 July 1974, wrote it into the Constitution, according to the Supreme Court’s account in P. Sambamurthy.

The article lets the President, by order, provide “equitable opportunities and facilities for the people belonging to different parts of such State” in jobs and education. An order may divide posts into local cadres, define the local area for recruitment and for admission to universities, and set preferences or reservations for candidates who lived or studied there. Clause (3) allowed an Administrative Tribunal for service disputes, which a Presidential order of 19 May 1975 created. On 20 December 1986 the Supreme Court declared “clause (5) of Article 371-D alongwith the Proviso” void, because the proviso let the state government override a tribunal in which it was a litigant. The Law Ministry’s May 2024 edition still prints the clause.

Article 371E, from the same amendment, lets Parliament establish a university in Andhra Pradesh. The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act extended Article 371D to Telangana from 2 June 2014. The News Minute reported on 30 August 2018 that the President had approved a Telangana order on local cadres, meant to replace the 1975 order, that aims to give locals 95 per cent of posts across seven zones grouped into two multi-zones.

Article 371J covers the Hyderabad-Karnataka region. The Ninety-eighth Amendment Act received assent on 1 January 2013 and took effect on 1 October 2013. The President may give the Governor a special responsibility for a separate development board for the region, an equitable share of development funds, and “equitable opportunities and facilities for the people belonging to the said region” in jobs, education and vocational training. An order may reserve a share of seats in the region’s educational institutions, and a share of state posts, for people who belong there “by birth or by domicile”.

The region has six districts, Bidar, Kalaburagi, Yadgir, Raichur, Koppal and Ballari, The Hindu reported, and the state proclaimed its new name, Kalyana Karnataka, on 17 September 2019. The Nizam of Hyderabad ruled it until 17 September 1948, the date covered in our account of Operation Polo.

Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Goa get a floor for the Assembly and, in two cases, a Governor’s duty

Four articles fix a minimum Assembly size, Mizoram’s above and three more. Sikkim’s Article 371F, in force from 26 April 1975, requires “not less than thirty members” and gives the Governor a “special responsibility for peace”. Its other clauses, including the bar on court cases over pre-1975 treaties, are covered in the account of Sikkim’s 1975 merger.

Article 371H, from the Fifty-fifth Amendment and in force from 20 February 1987, requires at least 30 members in Arunachal Pradesh and gives the Governor “special responsibility with respect to law and order”. The Statement of Objects and Reasons, signed on 1 December 1986, cites the territory’s sensitive location. The Governor acts on his individual judgment after consulting ministers until the President ends the responsibility by order.

Article 371I, from the Fifty-sixth Amendment Act of 23 May 1987 and in force from 30 May 1987, is one sentence: the Goa Assembly “shall consist of not less than thirty members”. The Statement of Objects and Reasons, signed on 6 May 1987, says the existing Goa, Daman and Diu Assembly had 30 elected and three nominated members and would serve as the provisional Assembly once the two Daman and Diu members were excluded.

How these differ from the Article 370 that ended in 2019

Article 370 sat in the same Part XXI until 2019. Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order 273 declared that from 6 August 2019 all its clauses ceased to be operative except one, which applies every provision of the Constitution to Jammu and Kashmir without modification. The Supreme Court upheld the step on 11 December 2023, and our account of the seven years since covers what followed.

The same judgment placed the 371 articles on the other side of a line. Its lead opinion said Articles 371A to 371J “are examples of special arrangements for different States”, a feature of asymmetric federalism, and that the difference between states “remains one of degree and not of kind”. It reasoned that Article 370 was never meant to be permanent, noting that Part XXI “specifies temporary and transitional provisions”, and it dated the widening of Part XXI to special provisions to the Thirteenth Amendment, in force from 1 December 1963.

Each lettered article was added by a constitutional amendment passed under the procedure that Article 368 sets out. The last was the Ninety-eighth Amendment, in force from 1 October 2013.