Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Article 74(Constitution of India)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. ( X! ·  talk )  · @186  · 03:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Article 74(Constitution of India)

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

NOTE - This page has been moved to Article 74 (Constitution of India).

I see no other page existing that is about a specific article of the Indian constitution (see Constitution of India). It is split up into pages by "parts" (see infobox). If this page does stay, it should be moved to add that space in and redirected to whichever currently redlink page article 74 would fall under. -Zeus-u 03:51, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Snow Keep - There's no reason in theory or practice a single article of a constitution can't have its own page (as here or here). The requirement, as in all things, is that of the general notability guidelines - significant coverage in multiple reliable independent sources.  Given that this is the constitution of one of the world's most heavily populated countries, and that the process for changing the constitution is far from trivial, yet an amendment was passed specifically to change this article, there are without doubt an incredible number of foreign-language sources establishing notability.  Difficulty in English-speakers finding them is not a reason to delete an article. - DustFormsWords (talk) 04:03, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I am aware of the number of american constitution pages, however I wrote that off to the fact that this in an english language wiki. But your reasoning is sound. I'm not even really advocating for deletion, just trying to find out what proper protocol is. -Zeus-u 04:06, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The article needs appropriate sourcing, a lot of work, and should probably be renamed (if only to stick a space before the bracket), but deletion isn't the appropriate forum for making those changes. If you're looking to improve it yourself (and why not?), the American Constitution articles are probably a good template.  Alternatively I'll go and tag it with some appropriate projects in the hope some language, nation and legal experts stop by to help out. - DustFormsWords (talk) 04:11, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The reason I placed it in for deletion is because at first, I wasn't sure whether it should be kept or not. But seeing that it is, I will rescind deletion by nom let it keep going, as there seems to be some interesting discourse. -Zeus-u 04:12, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and moved the page to Article 74 (Constitution of India). - 04:19, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * There are some articles which form the core of Constitution of India. Articles such as 1, 13, 19, 21, 32, 37, 74, 124, 226, 265, 326, 356, 370 established the very basis for the functioning of state in India. They are part of many controversies and are very frequently referred in the literature. There used to be (prior to 42nd amendment) serious discussions on whether council of ministers has the ultimate say or the president can act on his discretion. I don't know why we should not have articles for such important articles which are part of serious discussions just because there is no precedent. Anyhow, some parts of the constitution of India so big that, single article for a single part will make the article too big to include all relevant information. - Anilmuthineni (talk)  5:36 AM 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Note - -Zeus-, I'm of the opinion that you should let this AfD run. I don't have a solid opinion yet, I might lean towards keep, but I don't think that every Article (as in Indian Constitution article) is necessarily appropriate for its own page (much as not every constitutional section article is appropriate; we instead merge them into the next higher hierarchy) and I would like to hear some discussion on it first. Shadowjams (talk) 06:30, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Note - That's not a fair comparison in this case. The U.S. Constitution has pages for each of its articles (7) and for each of its amendments (27), and some other subsidiary clauses that have a substantial amount of caselaw. But the Indian Constitution is structured quite differently. There are, according to our article on the point, 448 articles. A fairer comparison would be whether or not we have an article about each section of the U.S. constitution. We don't. Shadowjams (talk) 06:26, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No, we only have articles on the notable sections. As is the case here. - DustFormsWords (talk) 12:05, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep If someone wants to write a page about a particular article of the Constitution of India, I don't see it as distinct from any other national legislation. I sympathize with the concerns that this opens the door to somebody, on an ego trip making 448 useless stubs.  However, I think it's far worse to open the door for a bunch of people to debate whether a section of a nation's constitution is "notable enough" for an encyclopedia article, in the same manner that we would debate the notability of a TV episode or a celebrity.  Better that we should treat constitutional articles the way we treat professional athletes.  The significance of Article 74 should be obvious because of the limits it places upon the powers of the President of India, who is less powerful than the Prime Minister, but still has significant responsibilities.  Mandsford (talk) 17:06, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - Because Mandsford gave a good explanation of its notability. I do not agree with DustFromWords's approach. There ought to be some specific finding of notability here. Critical legal documents (and significant divisions of them) are inherently notable. Not every division is though. Mandsford gives a good explanation of why this section is notable, which is what's required. Shadowjams (talk) 17:35, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - First of all it is useless to look at Constitution of India from the perspective of Constitution of United States. US Constitution is much smaller and concise than Indian Constitution. More importantly it is comparatively easy to amend Indian constitution and as you can see there are less than 30 amendments to US constitution in more than 200 years, where as there are more than 100 amendments to Indian Constitution in just 60 years. Considering the present state of affairs and peculiarity of problems to be solved more amendments are going to come, almost every year. With each amendment, there will be many cases in Supreme court, and a wide range of debate on corresponding articles of the constitution. It was argued that it is better to have one Wikipedia article for each part of the constitution. I saw the way they wrote in the case of US constitution. The problem with this approach is that while some parts are very small(such as parts I, IVA, IXVA, XX and XXII having less than or equal to 5 articles), some parts are very big(such as V and VI each of which having more than 85 articles). For parts other than V and VI, it is logical to have a single Wikipedia article for each part since there is considerable homogeneity in the articles they deal with, and their size is also understandable. But for parts V and VI it is completely illogical to put them in single Wikipedia articles just for the sake of using same rule for all parts. It is not just that they are of very large size, many articles that are there in these parts relate to administrative provisions, which are just sitting like that since the adoption of the constitution. There is no need for any kind of discussion on these articles. At the same time there are other articles that are amended many times and are focal point of court cases and issues such as parliamentary sovereignty, basic structure etc. So a single Wikipedia article will look like an artificial collection of discrete articles each having their own long story. I agree that an expert's help is required in this case, but till that time, at least for articles in parts V and VI (like this one which is in part V) I think one must allow separate Wikipedia articles. As I already said, many articles relate to administrative provisions and hence no need to fear of around 400 useless stubs. For those who doubt the significance of this article, it should be noted that in a parliamentary democracy(as in India), the head of the state(president in the case of India) has nominal powers, it is the council of ministers headed by prime minister where the fulcrum of power rests. This article establishes council of ministers, and prior to 42nd amendment, there was ambiguity whether the president can act against the advice of council of ministers. With growing demand to switch to presidential system, I am sure this article is again going to be under fire. Although I am regular visitor of Wikipedia, I am new to editing articles. Any inconvenience caused due to my unfamiliarity with editing is regretted. Anilmuthineni (talk) 19:30, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions.  -- &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  18:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions.  -- &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  18:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep of course. I am scratching my head at the logic of the nominating statement. The nominator sees, "no other page existing that is about a specific article of the Indian constitution". So the proposed solution to fix this lacunae on wikipedia is to delete the article that has been created. Wow! The notability of this article is not in doubt, as can be seen by numerous books and papers on Google books/scholars that discuss it - even though India law is vastly underrepresented on both (because most of these works are published by Indian publishers or GoI press). In particular, Indian public administration: institutions and issues by Ramesh Kumar Arora and  Rajni Goyal spends 3 pages discussing just the "aid and advice" phrase in the article's language. Constitutional scholar Durga Das Basu analyzes the article in his Constitutional law of India and other works. The article needs to be expanded to include the analysis, as well as the motivation and effect of the 42nd and the 44th amendments, but deletion is not at all warranted. Abecedare (talk) 01:27, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * My intention was that there was no precedent for such an article to exist, and that's why I decided to bring it forward for discussion. -Zeus-u 14:00, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - As demonstrated above, this is an important section of the Indian Constitution and a fairly large body of case law exists about this article and its uses.--Sodabottle (talk) 13:07, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - I added a case. I am sure there are many others that involved interpretation of this article. Anilmuthineni (talk) 14:30, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - Article 74(2) specifically gives immunity to President from courts on critical aid and advise question. This is powerful connection with the cabinet and also highlighted in courts judgments as a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens the legislative part of the State to the executive part(Supreme court,Rai Sahib Ram Jawaya Kapur And Ors. vs The State Of Punjab on 12 April, 1955). Milan7uf (talk) 05:45, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Well, looks like people are OK with Article 74 -- high fives to everyone in the Parliament of India for a job well done. Assuming that a future nominator wants to poll us over whether a particular portion of any nation's constitution is "notable", consider nominating the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution ("No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law").    I think that the nominator's point may have been that there should be a consistent manner for writing about the Indian Constitution (such as articles about the 24 parts from Part I to Part XXIV), which is a legitimate suggestion.  While I'm glad that the article is being improved with additional sourcing, I think it's sad if people are going to start judging parts of a constitution on the basis of "this one's important... but that one isn't".  Mandsford (talk) 18:29, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.