Special Provisions Relating to Certain States (Articles 370, 371 series)

Part XXI of the Constitution of India — beginning with Article 369 and stretching to Article 392 — collects what the framers themselves called temporary, transitional and special provisions. Of these, two clusters carry an outsized weight in judiciary and CLAT PG examinations: Article 370, the gateway through which the State of Jammu and Kashmir was once integrated into the constitutional order on bespoke terms, and the Article 371 series (Articles 371, 371A to 371J), which carve out tailored arrangements for thirteen named States ranging from Maharashtra and Gujarat in the west to Nagaland and Mizoram in the north-east. Together they are the constitutional textbook of asymmetric federalism — proof that one Constitution can house many bargains.

The chapter that follows explains the architecture of each provision, the historical compromises they encode, the leading authorities that have construed them, and the points where the examiner most often probes. It is best read alongside the union and its territory framework of Articles 1 to 4 and the wider scheme of centre-state legislative relations set out in Part XI.

The architecture of Part XXI

Part XXI does three different things. Articles 369 and 372 to 392 are transitional — they bridge the constitutional commencement on 26 January 1950 by continuing pre-existing laws, retaining sitting judges and Auditors-General, and giving the President short-window powers to adapt and remove difficulties. Article 370 was, on its own face, temporary — it was placed in Part XXI because the framers expected it would either ripen into a permanent settlement through the Constituent Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir or fall away once that Assembly completed its work. The 371-series provisions, by contrast, are special — designed to be permanent fixtures of the constitutional order even though they sit in the same Part.

The vocabulary matters because each label produces a different judicial posture. Transitional provisions are read narrowly, in service of continuity. A temporary provision is read with an eye to the moment of its eventual disappearance. A special provision is read as a deliberate constitutional carve-out that cannot be flattened by the principle that all States must be treated alike.

Article 370 — the original Jammu and Kashmir bargain

Article 370, as originally enacted in 1949, opened with a sweeping non-obstante clause: notwithstanding anything in the Constitution, four propositions held. First, Article 238 (the Part B States provisions) would not apply to the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Second, Parliament's power to legislate for the State was hemmed in to those Union and Concurrent List entries which the President, in consultation with the State Government, declared corresponded to the matters specified in the Instrument of Accession, and to such other matters as the State Government concurred in by order. Third, only Article 1 and Article 370 itself applied of their own force. Fourth, every other constitutional provision applied only to the extent the President, by order, specified — with the State Government's consultation or concurrence depending on whether the matter fell inside or outside the Instrument of Accession.

The mechanism was elegant: the rest of the Constitution would reach Jammu and Kashmir only by way of Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Orders issued by the President under Article 370(1)(d). Over the decades the Presidential Orders were used freely — to extend the Fundamental Rights, the writ jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, the citizenship provisions, the franchise provisions and much else — so that by the early twenty-first century the practical autonomy of the State was substantially more limited than the text of Article 370 suggested.

Scope of the President's power to alter constitutional provisions under Article 370(1)(d)

Two recurrent doctrinal questions dominated the case law on Article 370. The first concerned the breadth of the President's power to alter constitutional provisions in their application to the State. The Supreme Court held that the power to reshape an existing provision includes the power to enlarge or add to it and, where necessary, even to abrogate it; it is co-extensive with the power to amend and is not confined to minor textual adjustments. Article 370 was, in effect, a special amending power for Jammu and Kashmir, and Article 368 of the main Constitution did not curtail it.

The second question concerned what happened after the State's Constituent Assembly dissolved itself in 1957 without recommending the abrogation of Article 370 under the proviso to Article 370(3). The Supreme Court's settled answer was that Article 370 had not perished with that Assembly — the Article continued to operate, and the President's powers under it continued to be exercisable, even though the institutional safeguard the proviso contemplated was no longer available in its original form. The State of Jammu and Kashmir, in any event, possessed no vestige of sovereignty outside the Constitution of India and its own subordinate Constitution; its residents were first and foremost citizens of India.

The 2019 reorganisation and the abrogation question

On 5 August 2019 the Union government issued Constitutional Order 272 (Constitution Application to Jammu and Kashmir Order, 2019), invoking Article 370(1) to apply the entire Constitution of India to the State and to amend Article 367 so that references to the State's Constituent Assembly in Article 370(3) would be read as references to the Legislative Assembly. With the State then under President's Rule and the Legislative Assembly dissolved, that proviso obligation was treated as discharged by parliamentary resolution. Constitutional Order 273 followed the next day, declaring that all clauses of Article 370 ceased to operate save a residual proviso. In parallel, Parliament enacted the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, bifurcating the State into two Union Territories — Jammu and Kashmir (with a legislature) and Ladakh (without one).

The constitutional validity of the 2019 exercise was tested before a Constitution Bench, which upheld it. The Court held that the State of Jammu and Kashmir did not retain any element of internal sovereignty after its accession; that Article 370 was a temporary provision both as a matter of placement and as a matter of substance, intended to facilitate integration during the constituent moment; and that the President's power to declare the Article inoperative under clause (3) survived the dissolution of the State's Constituent Assembly. The reorganisation of the State into two Union Territories was upheld as referable to Article 3, with the proviso that the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir would be restored at the earliest. The doctrinal upshot is that the question of "abrogation of Article 370" is now settled: the Article continues to exist on the statute book as an empty husk, with the rest of the Constitution applying to the territory as it does to any other State or Union Territory.

The Article 371 series — thirteen bargains in one chapter

Article 371 and its lettered successors (371A through 371J) are not a single device repeated thirteen times. Each was inserted at a different moment, in response to a different political settlement, and each carries a different package of features. What unites them is that they all begin with a non-obstante clause, all override the rest of the Constitution to the extent they go, and most rest a "special responsibility" on the Governor that requires him to exercise his individual judgement on specified matters — a constitutionally significant phrase, because it removes those matters from the ordinary ministerial-aid-and-advice rule that governs the State executive.

Article 371 — Maharashtra and Gujarat

Article 371(2), in its post-1973 form, empowers the President to provide by order for special responsibility of the Governor of Maharashtra or Gujarat for three matters: (i) the establishment of separate development boards for Vidarbha, Marathwada and the rest of Maharashtra, and for Saurashtra, Kutch and the rest of Gujarat, with annual reports to be tabled in the State Legislative Assembly; (ii) equitable allocation of funds for developmental expenditure across those areas, subject to the requirements of the State as a whole; and (iii) equitable arrangements for technical education, vocational training and employment opportunities in State services across those areas. The Regional Committees originally set up for Andhra Pradesh by the unamended Article 371 have since been abolished. The point to commit to memory is that the Maharashtra-Gujarat clause is about balanced sub-regional development within the State, not about separate constitutional status.

Article 371A — Nagaland

Article 371A is the strongest of the 371-series provisions. It was inserted in 1962 to give effect to the sixteen-point agreement reached with the Naga People's Convention. No Act of Parliament dealing with the religious or social practices of the Nagas, Naga customary law and procedure, the administration of civil and criminal justice involving decisions according to Naga customary law, or the ownership and transfer of land and its resources will apply to Nagaland unless the State Legislative Assembly so resolves. The Governor carries special responsibility for law and order so long as in his opinion internal disturbances continuing from the Naga Hills-Tuensang Area persist; and a regional council was contemplated for the Tuensang district with bespoke powers. The Limitation Act, 1963 has been held not to involve any decision according to Naga customary law and so applies to Nagaland of its own force.

Article 371B — Assam

Article 371B, inserted by the 22nd Amendment in 1969, empowers the President to provide for a committee of the Assam Legislative Assembly composed of members elected from the tribal areas in Part I of the table appended to paragraph 20 of the Sixth Schedule and such other members as may be specified. The Article was the constitutional precursor to the creation of Meghalaya as a sub-State and ultimately as a full State under the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971. For an exam-aspirant the takeaway is that 371B is about internal accommodation of tribal areas within Assam — and dovetails with the autonomous district arrangements of the Sixth Schedule which we treat in detail in the chapter on the schedules to the Constitution.

Article 371C — Manipur

Article 371C empowers the President, by order, to provide for the constitution and functions of a committee of the Manipur Legislative Assembly composed of members elected from the Hill Areas, for textual changes to the Rules of Business of the Government and the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly to that end, and for any special responsibility of the Governor to secure the proper functioning of that committee. The Governor must report annually, or whenever required by the President, on the administration of the Hill Areas, and the executive power of the Union extends to the giving of directions to the State Government on that subject. "Hill Areas" means such areas as the President may by order declare. Manipur achieved full Statehood through the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971, and 371C is the standing safeguard that its hill belt does not get out-voted in the Assembly's day-to-day work.

Article 371D — Andhra Pradesh and Telangana

Article 371D, inserted by the 32nd Amendment in 1973 and amended on the bifurcation of the State in 2014, is the most operationally elaborate of the 371-series provisions. The President may, by order with respect to either Andhra Pradesh or Telangana, provide for equitable opportunities and facilities for the people belonging to different parts of the State in the matter of public employment and education. The order may organise the State civil services into different local cadres, specify which parts of the State shall be local areas for the purpose of direct recruitment to those cadres and for university admissions, and provide for preference or reservation in favour of candidates who have resided or studied in the local area concerned. The interplay with Article 16(3), which permits residence-based requirements in services under the Union and the States, is integral to understanding why the local-cadre arrangement survives equality challenge.

The provision goes further. Clause (3) empowers the President to constitute an Administrative Tribunal for the State to exercise jurisdiction over service matters — appointment, allotment, promotion, seniority, conditions of service. The High Court is divested of superintendence over the Tribunal, and no other court (other than the Supreme Court) has jurisdiction over those matters — a carve-out that runs against the ordinary scheme of the High Court's supervisory powers. The object, as the Supreme Court explained in Chief Justice of A.P. v. L.V.A. Dixitulu, AIR 1979 SC 193, is twofold: to promote balanced development of the backward areas of the State and to provide equitable opportunities to different areas in the matter of education and public employment. The expression "civil service of the State" in clause (3) does not, however, include the staff of the High Court or the subordinate judiciary, who continue to be governed by Articles 229 and 235 of the Constitution. Clause (5), which had empowered the State Government to annul a Tribunal decision, was struck down by the Supreme Court in P. Sambamurthy v. State of A.P., AIR 1987 SC 663, on the ground that it violated two basic features of the Constitution — the rule of law and judicial review — and is one of the most-cited applications of the basic structure doctrine. Clause (10) gives the Article and orders made under it overriding effect over any other provision of the Constitution or any law for the time being in force.

Article 371E — Central University in Andhra Pradesh

Article 371E is short and easily forgotten. It enables Parliament, by law, to provide for the establishment of a University in the State of Andhra Pradesh. It is not, strictly speaking, a special provision in the same sense as the rest of the series — it is an enabling provision pursuant to which the Central University in Andhra Pradesh was established. Its placement in Part XXI is an artefact of legislative tidiness rather than asymmetric federalism in any deep sense.

Article 371F — Sikkim

Article 371F is the most elaborately drafted Article in the entire 371 series — it has sixteen lettered sub-clauses (a) to (p) — because it had to do the work of constitutionally incorporating an entire former protectorate into the Union. Sikkim had been an Indian State under a hereditary Chogyal subject to British paramountcy; after independence it became a protectorate of the Union by treaty. The Constitution (35th Amendment) Act, 1974 introduced the unprecedented concept of an "associate State" by inserting Article 2A and the 10th Schedule. After the Sikkim Assembly resolved on 10 April 1975 to abolish the institution of the Chogyal and to make Sikkim a constituent unit of India, and after that resolution was approved by referendum, the Constitution (36th Amendment) Act, 1975 admitted Sikkim into the Union as the 22nd State, omitting Article 2A and the 10th Schedule and inserting Article 371F.

The substantive features of Article 371F repay study. The Legislative Assembly of Sikkim shall consist of not less than thirty members. Parliament may, for protecting the rights and interests of different sections of the population of Sikkim, make provision for reserved seats and the delimitation of constituencies from which candidates belonging to such sections alone may stand. The Governor of Sikkim has special responsibility for peace and for an equitable arrangement for the social and economic advancement of different sections of the population, and acts in his discretion subject to such directions as the President may issue. All laws in force in Sikkim immediately before the appointed day continue in force, by virtue of clause (k), notwithstanding any inconsistency with the Constitution — the Supreme Court held in State of Sikkim v. Surendra Prasad Sharma, (1994) 5 SCC 282, that this protective non-obstante was meant precisely to immunise such laws from Article 13 challenge until amended or repealed. Clause (m) ousts the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and any other court in respect of disputes arising out of treaties, agreements or engagements relating to Sikkim entered into before the appointed day, save in respect of Article 143 references — a treatment that bears comparison with the Supreme Court's ordinary jurisdiction under Articles 32, 131 and 136.

Article 371G — Mizoram

Article 371G, inserted by the 53rd Amendment in 1986 to give effect to the Mizo Accord, mirrors Article 371A. No Act of Parliament dealing with the religious or social practices of the Mizos, Mizo customary law and procedure, the administration of civil and criminal justice involving decisions according to Mizo customary law, or the ownership and transfer of land applies to Mizoram unless the State Legislative Assembly so resolves. A proviso preserves Central Acts already in force in the Union territory of Mizoram immediately before the 53rd Amendment came into effect. The Legislative Assembly of Mizoram shall consist of not less than forty members.

Article 371H — Arunachal Pradesh

Article 371H gives the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh special responsibility with respect to law and order in the State. He must consult the Council of Ministers and then exercise his individual judgement as to the action to be taken; the question whether a matter is one in which he is to act in his individual judgement is itself for the Governor to decide in his discretion, and that decision is not justiciable. The President may, on the Governor's report or otherwise, terminate that special responsibility by order. The Legislative Assembly shall consist of not less than thirty members.

Article 371-I — Goa

Article 371-I is the shortest in the series. Its sole content is the requirement that the Legislative Assembly of the State of Goa shall consist of not less than thirty members — a floor designed to ensure adequate representational depth for a small State that joined the Union as a Union Territory in 1961 and was elevated to Statehood by the Goa, Daman and Diu Reorganisation Act, 1987.

Article 371-J — Karnataka (Hyderabad-Karnataka)

Article 371-J, inserted by the 98th Amendment in 2012, provides for special responsibility of the Governor of Karnataka in respect of the Hyderabad-Karnataka region, since renamed Kalyana-Karnataka. The President may, by order, provide for the establishment of a separate development board for the region with annual reports to be tabled in the Legislative Assembly; for equitable allocation of funds for developmental expenditure over the region; and for equitable opportunities and facilities for its people in matters of public employment, education and vocational training. An order under sub-clause (c) may further provide for reservation of seats in educational and vocational training institutions for students who belong to the region by birth or domicile, and for reservation of identified posts under the State Government and bodies under its control for persons of the region by birth or domicile.

Asymmetric federalism — the unifying idea

The 371-series provisions are the doctrinal proof that Indian federalism is asymmetric — that it does not insist on uniform treatment of every State. The framers anticipated that a constitution which had to absorb princely States, tribal frontiers, recently merged territories and culturally distinct sub-regions could not work if every accommodation had to be classified as a violation of equal protection. The Article 371 series solves that problem by writing the variations into the constitutional text itself, thereby putting them beyond Article 14 challenge under the well-settled rule that constitutional provisions cannot be tested against other constitutional provisions on the ground of inequality.

The contrast with Article 370 is instructive. Article 370 was placed in the same Part but was always understood as temporary: it was a constitutional vestibule, designed to be entered and then left behind once full integration was complete. The 371 series, by contrast, is part of the permanent furniture. The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasised that special-responsibility clauses, customary-law protection clauses and the development-board mechanism are not constitutional infirmities but constitutional answers to genuinely different starting positions. Read together with the Sixth Schedule provisions for autonomous tribal areas, the protective clauses for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other classes and the linguistic safeguards in Part XVII, the 371 series shapes a Union that holds together by acknowledging difference rather than by suppressing it.

Special responsibility of the Governor — the common doctrinal stem

Articles 371, 371A, 371C, 371F and 371H all use the same phrase: the Governor shall have special responsibility for specified matters. The doctrinal content of this phrase, common across the provisions, is fourfold. First, in discharging the special responsibility the Governor must consult the Council of Ministers, but the final decision is his "in his individual judgement". Second, the question whether any matter is one in which the special responsibility applies is itself for the Governor to decide in his discretion. Third, the validity of anything done by the Governor in this domain cannot be called in question on the ground that he ought or ought not to have acted in the exercise of his individual judgement. Fourth, the President may by order terminate the special responsibility on receiving the Governor's report or otherwise, once it is satisfied that the underlying conditions no longer obtain. The phrase is therefore a carefully drawn exception to the ordinary rule under Article 163 that the Governor acts on the aid and advice of his Council of Ministers — and an exam question that asks whether the Governor has any constitutional space outside that aid-and-advice rule should think first of these provisions.

Article 369 and the residual transitional Articles

Article 369, although it heads Part XXI, is not part of the 371-series story at all. It conferred on Parliament a five-year power, from the commencement of the Constitution, to legislate on certain enumerated subjects in the State List as if they were in the Concurrent List — cotton and woollen textiles, foodstuffs, coal, iron, steel and the like. The power expired on 26 January 1955; laws made under it ceased to operate to the extent of incompetency, except as respects acts already done. Article 369 is now of historical interest only, but its drafting technique — a non-obstante override of the legislative-list distribution for a defined period — recurs in the constitutional grammar of the distribution of legislative powers generally.

Articles 372 and 372A handle the continuance of pre-Constitution laws and the Presidential power to adapt them; Article 373 dealt with the President's preventive detention orders pending parliamentary law under Article 22; Articles 374 to 378A handle the smooth transition of judges, Auditors-General, Public Service Commissioners and the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly; and Article 392 vested in the President a now-spent power to remove difficulties in giving effect to the Constitution. None of these is examined in detail here because each finds fuller treatment in the chapters of our Constitution of India notes dealing with the substantive Articles to which they relate.

How the chapter typically appears in question papers

The examiner can frame this material in three predictable ways. The first is a straight identification question — match the State to the Article, or pick the State which is governed by Article 371G. The second is a doctrinal question on Article 370 — its temporary character, the scope of the President's power to alter constitutional provisions in their application to the State, the effect of the dissolution of the State Constituent Assembly, the validity of Constitutional Order 272 and 273 and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019. The third is a structural question that asks how a special-responsibility clause fits with Article 163 and the wider scheme of centre-state administrative relations, or how Article 371D's Administrative Tribunal arrangement coexists with the High Court's powers under Articles 226 and 227 — for which the Sambamurthy line of cases provides the answer.

A careful candidate keeps three further distinctions in mind. Article 371A and Article 371G are conditioned on a State Legislative Assembly resolution; Article 371B and Article 371C operate through committees of the State Legislative Assembly. Article 371D and Article 371-J set up reservation-style arrangements; Article 371(2), Article 371F and Article 371H rest substantive special responsibility on the Governor. And the floor on Assembly size — thirty members for Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Goa; forty for Mizoram — appears in different sub-clauses but performs an identical structural function.

Frequently asked questions

Was Article 370 a temporary or a permanent provision?

Article 370 was a temporary provision both in placement and in substance. It sits in Part XXI, headed "Temporary, Transitional and Special Provisions", and was designed to operate during the transition that followed the State of Jammu and Kashmir's accession in 1947. The Constitution Bench in 2023 held that it survived the dissolution of the State's Constituent Assembly in 1957 but did not thereby become permanent. The Article continues to exist on the statute book after the 2019 Presidential Orders, but its operative content has been emptied out, and the rest of the Constitution applies to the territory as it does to any other State or Union Territory.

What is the difference between Article 370 and the Article 371 series?

Article 370 was a temporary provision dealing exclusively with the State of Jammu and Kashmir; it operated as a constitutional vestibule through which the rest of the Constitution reached the State only by Presidential Orders. The Article 371 series, by contrast, contains thirteen permanent special provisions for thirteen different States. They are not vestibules: the rest of the Constitution applies to those States in full, and the 371-series clause carves out a specific arrangement on top — a development board, a customary-law protection, an Administrative Tribunal, a special responsibility of the Governor, or a floor on Assembly size.

What does "special responsibility" of the Governor mean under Articles 371, 371A, 371C, 371F and 371H?

The Governor must consult the Council of Ministers, but the final decision is his "in his individual judgement". The question whether a matter falls within the special responsibility is itself for the Governor to decide in his discretion, and the validity of anything he does cannot be challenged on the ground that he ought or ought not to have acted in his individual judgement. The President may terminate the special responsibility by order on the Governor's report or otherwise. It is therefore a constitutionally drawn exception to the ordinary aid-and-advice rule under Article 163.

Why was clause (5) of Article 371D struck down in P. Sambamurthy v. State of A.P.?

Clause (5) had empowered the State Government to alter or annul any order of the Andhra Pradesh Administrative Tribunal before it became effective. The Supreme Court, in P. Sambamurthy v. State of A.P., AIR 1987 SC 663, held that allowing the executive to overturn a judicial decision violated two basic features of the Constitution — the rule of law and judicial review. The constitutional amendment that inserted the clause was therefore invalid, and any order purporting to be made under it is a nullity. The Tribunal's order, on that view, must be restored.

Does Article 371D apply only to Andhra Pradesh or also to Telangana?

It applies to both. Article 371D was inserted by the 32nd Amendment in 1973 with respect to Andhra Pradesh. After the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 bifurcated the State, the Article was amended so that the President may make orders with respect to either Andhra Pradesh or Telangana, having regard to the requirements of each State. The Administrative Tribunal arrangement under clause (3) likewise extends to both States. The drafting recognises that the local-cadre and equitable-opportunity object continues to be relevant in both successor States.

How was Article 370 abrogated in 2019, and what did the Supreme Court hold?

On 5 August 2019 the Union government issued Constitutional Order 272 invoking Article 370(1) to apply the entire Constitution to the State and to amend Article 367 so that references to the State's Constituent Assembly in Article 370(3) would be read as references to the Legislative Assembly. With the State under President's Rule, that proviso obligation was discharged by parliamentary resolution, and Constitutional Order 273 then declared all clauses of Article 370 inoperative save a residual proviso. Parliament simultaneously enacted the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019. A Constitution Bench upheld the exercise, holding that the State possessed no internal sovereignty after accession and that the President's power under clause (3) survived the dissolution of the State's Constituent Assembly.