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2. If question No. 1 is answered in affirmative, whether there is any person disqualified for being a Member of either house of Parliament and liable to be so declared by the Court?"
As a corollary, is there a requirement as indicated in Question No. 1 for membership of State Legislature in terms of Articles 173 and 188 of the Constitution of India, 1950 (in short, the Constitution).

2. In a nutshell, the petitioner's case is that Articles 84 and 173 of the Constitution have to be read in a manner that persons who are unable to comprehend their requirement of making and subscribing the oath or affirmation in terms of Articles 84, 99, 173 and 188 of the Constitution are ineligible to become Members of Parliament and Legislature of a State. To put it differently, according to the petitioner, the words "makes and subscribes" under Articles 84(a) and 173(a) not only imply that a person qualified to be a candidate to fill a seat in Parliament should be a citizen of India and not less than 25 years of age in the case of being elected to the House of People and not less than 30 years of age on being elected as member of Council of States but also should have sufficient knowledge of the letter and spirit of the Constitution, in order to make the requirement of making and subscribing the oath or affirmation to the Constitution meaningful and purposeful. It is submitted by the petitioner that the roles of Legislature are very vital for proper governance of the country in formulating policy decisions and making of laws on varied subjects. A person who is not literate and does not have basic knowledge of the Constitution cannot be said to have fulfillled the requirement of making and subscribing to the Constitution. Thus, according to the petitioner, use of the expression" make and subscribe" under Articles 84(a) and 173(a) also makes the legislative intent clear that adequate knowledge of law and spirit of the Constitution is inherent in the provisions. Since he is unaware of what is being legislated, the law making power delegated to him by the Constitution really results in mindless participation and more so when enactment of a statute comes up for consideration of the law making bodies. The Constitution makers were conscious of this position as their deliberations clearly reflect. According to the learned Counsel for the respondents the propositions advanced by the petitioner are incapable of being worked out and the interpretation put to Articles 84(a) and 173(a) of the Constitution would result in absurd results.

5. It may be necessary to make a journey down the Constitution framing body's deliberations together what was in the mind of the framers of the Constitution. We shall deal with its relevance infra. In the draft Constitution as was originally framed, Article 84 did not find a place. An amendment of the draft Constitution was made as Article 68A. This Article 68A as moved for amendment resulted in Article 84 being made a part of the Constitution. Two qualifications are prescribed for a person to be eligible to fill a seat in the Parliament. These are : (a) he should be a citizen of India and (b) he should not be less than twenty five years of age if he was a candidate for the House of People and not less than 30 years of age if he was a candidate for Council of States. No further qualifications were prescribed in the Article. When Article 68A by way of amendment to the draft Constitution was moved. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar stated as follows :

Though Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and Dr. Rajendra Prasad who were the Law Minister and the President of the Constituent Assembly, highlighted the desirability of having high qualifications, the same was not found acceptable. Only by Clause (c) of Article 84, Parliament was authorised to make any law prescribing any qualification in that behalf. In the line of Article 68-A, Article 152 was also added in the draft Constitution. Article 152 of the draft Constitution was incorporated as Article 173 of the Constitution. The said provision was similar to Article 68A of the draft Constitution. Prof. K. T. Shah moved an application for amendment of this Article by which word 'literacy' was sought to be added for a person to be elected as a member of Legislature. The proposed amendment was as under :--

6. By the 16th Amendment of the Consti-tution, which was done in 1963, the words "makes and subscribes before the President or some person authorised on that behalf an oath or affirmation according to the form set out for the purpose in the third schedule" were added. Such addition in under Article 84 did not imply that a person who was required to take the new oath must not only be literate but must also have adequate knowledge of the Constitution. By 1963 Amendment to the Constitution (Sixteenth Amendment), the requirement of making oath or affirmation and subscribing thereto an elected member, was also made obligatory on the candidates nominated for election. The relevant provisions as far as Parliament is concerned is Article 84(a), and as far as Legislature of the State is concerned is 173(a).