Peculiar Features of Indian Federalism

Peculiar federalism features set the Indian Constitution apart from the classical federations it otherwise resembles, and one of the clearest examples lies in how leftover, unlisted legislative subjects are handled. Most federations either name every possible subject or leave the unnamed ones with their constituent units; India instead hands this "residuary" power squarely to Parliament, a choice that sits alongside a detailed threefold division of subjects between the Union and the States. Reading these arrangements together with their comparative background explains why Indian federalism is frequently described as federal in structure but tilted toward the Centre in practice.

The Threefold Distribution Under the Seventh Schedule

Article 246, read with the Seventh Schedule, splits the subjects on which laws can be made into three lists: a Union List, a State List, and a Concurrent List, as enumerated in the Schedule with 98 subjects in the Union List, 59 items in the State List, and 52 items in the Concurrent List. This detailed, list-based method of dividing legislative authority between one Centre and many States is itself one of the defining features of how India structured its federation, since it tries to remove ambiguity by naming subjects rather than leaving broad, undefined zones of authority to be worked out later.

Article 248: Residuary Power Rests With the Union

Even a carefully enumerated set of three lists cannot anticipate every future subject of legislation, and it is here that Article 248 supplies the missing piece. It gives Parliament "exclusive power to make any law with respect to any matter not enumerated in the Concurrent List or State List," and this residuary power "shall include the power of making any law imposing a tax not mentioned in either of those Lists." In other words, whatever does not fit into the State List or the Concurrent List automatically falls to Parliament, and that includes the authority to create an entirely new tax that no existing list mentions.

This is the single most distinctive, and most debated, feature of Indian federalism's design. In the United States and in Australia, residuary power belongs to the states rather than the federal government, reflecting a history in which the states existed first and reluctantly transferred only specified powers upward. India, by contrast, follows the Canadian precedent of vesting residuary power in the Union rather than the constituent units.

The placement of this power also marks a deliberate break from India's own constitutional past. Under the Government of India Act, 1935, residuary power was not given to either the Federal legislature or the Provincial legislatures; it was placed in the hands of the Governor-General, an unelected colonial office-holder acting outside the ordinary federal-provincial legislative structure. The Constitution ended that arrangement by transferring residuary power directly to the elected Union legislature under Article 248.

How Residuary Power Is Distributed Across Federations

Why the States Did Not Need the Same Safeguards as in the USA

A related peculiarity concerns the very different starting point of Indian federalism compared with the American model. In the United States, the states had a sovereign and independent existence before the federation was formed, and they agreed to give up that sovereignty only to the extent necessary to run a common national government; as a result, the American Constitution builds in a number of safeguards to protect "state rights." India's States were not sovereign entities in that sense before the Constitution came into force, so there was no equivalent historical pressure to build in the same kind of protective architecture for the States. This background helps explain why residuary power, unlike in the American case, could be assigned to the Union without being read as a betrayal of pre-existing state sovereignty — there was no pre-existing state sovereignty for it to betray.

Judicial Determination of Residuary Matters

Because the boundary between the three enumerated lists and the residuary field is not always self-evident, the Constitution leaves the final word on classification to the courts. Whenever a dispute arises over whether a particular matter falls under one of the three Lists or slips into the residuary category reserved for the Union, it is the judiciary that makes the final determination, not the executive or the legislature itself.

Does Union-Held Residuary Power Weaken Federalism?

It is tempting to read a Union-held residuary power as evidence that India is not really federal, but this alone is not treated as decisive. Vesting residuary power in the Union is not, by itself, sufficient to negate the federal character of the political system, because it concerns only the mode of distribution of legislative powers between the Centre and the States, not the existence of that distribution itself. India still operates a system with clearly enumerated State and Concurrent Lists, elected State legislatures with exclusive domains, and a judiciary empowered to police the boundaries between them — the residuary rule simply decides who gets the unallocated remainder, and India, like Canada, has chosen the Union.

UPSC Relevance

Prelims

• Article 248 gives Parliament exclusive residuary power, including the power to impose a tax not mentioned in the State or Concurrent List — a frequently tested provision.
• Know which countries keep residuary power with their states (USA, Australia) versus with the Union (Canada, India).
• Under the Government of India Act, 1935, residuary power was vested in the Governor-General, not in the Federal or Provincial legislature — a useful comparative fact for prelims traps.

Mains

• Discuss how the Union's hold on residuary power under Article 248 reflects the broadly unitary bias within India's federal structure (GS2).
• Compare the placement of residuary power in India with that in the USA, Australia, and Canada, and evaluate whether this by itself weakens federal character.
• Examine the role of the judiciary in settling disputes over the classification of subjects between the three Lists and the residuary field.

FAQ

Q1. What is the peculiar feature of Indian federalism concerning residuary powers? Unlike most federations that leave unlisted subjects to the constituent states, India vests residuary legislative power exclusively in Parliament under Article 248, including the power to impose new taxes not covered by the existing Lists.

Q2. Which article of the Constitution deals with residuary powers? Article 248 gives Parliament exclusive power to legislate on any matter not enumerated in the Concurrent List or the State List, and to impose taxes not mentioned in either.

Q3. How does India's approach to residuary power differ from the United States? In the USA and Australia, residuary power rests with the states; India instead follows the Canadian model and vests this power in the Union.

Q4. Where did residuary power lie under the Government of India Act, 1935? It lay with neither the Federal legislature nor the Provincial legislatures, but was placed in the hands of the Governor-General.

Q5. Does giving residuary power to the Union make India a non-federal state? Not by itself. Vesting residuary power in the Union concerns only the mode of distributing legislative powers and is not, on its own, treated as sufficient to negate India's federal character.

Quick Revision

• Article 248: residuary legislative power, including the power to impose new taxes, vests exclusively in Parliament.
• Seventh Schedule (Article 246): Union List (98 subjects), State List (59 items), Concurrent List (52 items).
• USA and Australia: residuary power lies with the States; Canada and India: residuary power lies with the Union.
• Government of India Act, 1935: residuary power vested in the Governor-General, not the Federal or Provincial legislature.
• Courts give the final determination on whether a matter falls within the residuary field.
• Union-held residuary power alone does not negate India's federal character — it concerns only the mode of distributing powers.
• India's States were not sovereign before the Union formed, unlike US states, reducing the need for elaborate state-rights safeguards.

Sources

• The Constitution of India, Article 248 — Ministry of Law and Justice, legislative.gov.in
• The Constitution of India, Seventh Schedule and Article 246 — legislative.gov.in

Further Reference

For deeper reading on this topic and the wider polity syllabus, these standard works are recommended:

• M. Laxmikanth, Indian Polity (McGraw Hill) — the standard UPSC handbook.
• D.D. Basu, Introduction to the Constitution of India (LexisNexis) — authoritative constitutional-law treatment.
• The Constitution of India — Bare Act — the official text.

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