NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 6 Lawmaking — LET’S EXPLORE
Book page 148 Updated on2026-09-05
Q1.
Draw a small chart to show the process of how RTE became an act.
Answer
Here is the chart, built from the RTE’s own account of itself on page 146 and the general flow of Fig. 6.8 on page 147.
How the RTE travelled from an idea in the Directive Principles to an Act of Parliament — a journey of nearly a century, as the chapter tells it.
Step
What happened
Which stage of Fig. 6.8 this is
1
The idea sat in the Directive Principles of State Policy; the Constitution makers wanted it implemented within a decade of Independence, but it did not happen
Before the bill — the policy background
2
In the early 1990s someone argued in court that education was already part of the Right to Life, a Fundamental Right, because education is needed to lead a meaningful life
The Judiciary’s prompt to lawmakers
3
The 86th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2002 inserted Article 21A: the state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children between 6 and 14 years
A constitutional function of Parliament
4
Six years later the bill was tabled in the Rajya Sabha
Introduction in either House
5
A committee studied it thoroughly and suggested modifications
Referred to Standing Committee
6
The major debate was about funding — new schools, infrastructure and teachers for millions of children would be costly. By 2008 the MPs determined it was time
After the 2009 elections the new government pursued the matter; in August 2009 it was passed in the Lok Sabha
Process repeated in the other House
8
It received the President’s assent and became an Act
Presidential assent (then Gazette notification)
Tip: when you draw this in your notebook, put the years down the left-hand margin — 2002, 2008, 2009. Seeing the gaps between them is the whole point: a bill that everyone agreed with in principle still took seven years to travel from Article 21A to an Act.
Q2.
What do you think the process would be if RTE had been tabled in the Lok Sabha?
Answer
Almost exactly the same — only the order of the two Houses would swap. Fig. 6.8 begins with “Introduction in either House of the Parliament”, so an ordinary bill like the RTE could lawfully have started in either place.
Stage
What actually happened
If it had been tabled in the Lok Sabha
Introduction
Rajya Sabha
Lok Sabha
Reading and committee
Read, then referred to a committee that suggested modifications
Identical — read, then referred to a committee
Debate and vote
Clause-by-clause discussion, amendments voted, then a vote on the bill
Identical
The other House
Process repeated in the Lok Sabha, which passed it in August 2009
Process repeated in the Rajya Sabha
Assent and notification
Presidential assent, then Gazette notification
Identical
Why it would still have to go to the other House: a bill becomes an act only when both Houses have passed it in the same form. That is the whole point of a bicameral legislature — the Council of States gets to look at a law made for the whole country, and the House of the People gets to look at anything the Council starts. Starting in the Lok Sabha would not have let the bill skip the Rajya Sabha.
Did you know? There is one kind of bill where the House genuinely matters: a Money Bill, concerned with financial matters such as taxation and government borrowing, can be introduced only in the Lok Sabha — and only with the prior recommendation of the President. The RTE was not a Money Bill, even though money was the biggest argument about it.