India's Constitution Has 12 Schedules That Fix 233 Rajya Sabha Seats, Divide Lawmaking Across Three Lists, Name 22 Languages and Set the Anti-Defection Rule

The Constitution of India has 12 schedules, which are the lists and tables that its articles refer to when a rule is too long to write out in the article itself. Between them they name the states and union territories, give each state its seats in the Rajya Sabha, divide lawmaking between Parliament and the states, list 22 languages and set the rule against legislators switching parties.

Twelve schedules, and four that came after 1950

The count comes from the Government of India edition of the Constitution that incorporates every amendment up to the 105th (2021). Four of the twelve were added later. The Ninth came with the First Amendment, effective 18 June 1951. The Tenth came with the 52nd Amendment on 1 March 1985, the Eleventh with the 73rd on 24 April 1993 and the Twelfth with the 74th on 1 June 1993. The other eight belong to the original text, though several have been rewritten since.

Which schedule you want to change decides how hard it is. Article 4(2) says a law that admits or reorganises a state is not a constitutional amendment, so Parliament can rewrite the First and Fourth Schedules with an ordinary law. The Fifth and Sixth Schedules say the same of themselves (paragraphs 7 and 21). Any change to the three lists of the Seventh Schedule needs two-thirds of Parliament and the approval of at least half the state legislatures, under the proviso to Article 368(2). The Eighth Schedule is not on that proviso’s list, so Parliament’s special majority is enough: two-thirds of the members present and voting, and a majority of the full membership of each House.

The First and Fourth: 28 states, 8 union territories and 233 Rajya Sabha seats

Article 1 says India, that is Bharat, is a Union of States, and it sends the reader to the First Schedule for the list. In the edition’s text the schedule names 28 states and 8 union territories: Delhi, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Puducherry, Chandigarh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. A state’s entry defines its territory by pointing to the Act of Parliament that created it. Telangana’s entry says its territory is whatever section 3 of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 specifies, in force from 2 June 2014.

Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh entered the union territory list on 31 October 2019, a change covered in our piece on Article 370. Sikkim came in through the 36th Amendment, effective 26 April 1975, which also gave it a Rajya Sabha seat.

The Fourth Schedule is that seat table. Article 80 sets the Rajya Sabha, the upper house, at no more than 238 representatives of states and union territories, plus 12 members the President nominates for knowledge of literature, science, art or social service. The table has 31 entries and adds up to 233: Uttar Pradesh 31, Maharashtra 19, Tamil Nadu 18, Bihar and West Bengal 16 each, down to nine entries with a single seat, among them Goa, Sikkim and Puducherry. With the 12 nominees, a full House is 245. When Andhra Pradesh was divided in 2014, section 12 of the reorganisation Act cut its seats from 18 to 11 and gave Telangana 7.

The Second and Third: what office-holders are paid and what they swear

The Second Schedule fixes the pay of the President, the Governors, the presiding officers of the houses, Supreme Court and High Court judges and the Comptroller and Auditor-General. The 1950 figures were 10,000 rupees a month for the President and 5,500 for a Governor. Parliament has raised them by ordinary law, and the edition’s footnotes give the current amounts: five lakh rupees (500,000) for the President and 3.5 lakh for a Governor, under the Finance Act, 2018, with effect from 1 January 2016. The same footnotes put a Supreme Court judge’s pay at 2.5 lakh and the Chief Justice’s at 2.8 lakh.

The Third Schedule prints the oaths in eight numbered forms, for Union and State ministers, candidates and members of Parliament and of the state legislatures, the judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts, and the Comptroller and Auditor-General. Two are oaths of secrecy for ministers. The others pledge true faith and allegiance to the Constitution, and since the 16th Amendment (effective 5 October 1963) they include a promise to “uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India”. The President’s and Governors’ oaths sit elsewhere. Articles 60 and 159 print them, with a promise to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution”.

The Fifth and Sixth: rules for tribal areas

Article 244 splits tribal areas between two schedules. The Sixth covers Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. The Fifth covers every other state that has Scheduled Areas, which the President declares by order (paragraph 6).

Ten states have them, according to the Press Information Bureau in December 2021: Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Rajasthan. Each has a Tribes Advisory Council of up to 20 members, three-fourths of them Scheduled Tribe members of the state assembly. Scheduled Tribes are the tribal communities the President specifies by notification under Article 342. In a Scheduled Area the Governor can announce that a state or central law does not apply, or applies with changes. The Governor can also make regulations that restrict the transfer of land by tribal members and regulate money-lending to them, and such a regulation has no effect until the President assents (paragraph 5).

The Sixth Schedule goes further and sets up autonomous districts. Its table lists ten: three in Assam (North Cachar Hills, Karbi Anglong and Bodoland), three in Meghalaya, the Tripura Tribal Areas District and three in Mizoram. Each has a District Council of up to 30 members, no more than four nominated by the Governor and the rest elected by adult suffrage. A 2003 amendment, effective 7 September 2003, made the Bodoland Territorial Council larger: up to 46 members, 40 of them elected.

The Seventh: three lists of who makes which laws

The Seventh Schedule is the one most often used in practice. Article 246 gives Parliament exclusive power over the Union List, the state legislatures exclusive power over the State List, and both power over the Concurrent List. Article 254 settles clashes on the Concurrent List: the central law prevails, unless the state law was reserved for the President and received assent, in which case it prevails in that state, and Parliament can still override it later. Anything on no list belongs to Parliament, under Article 248 and entry 97 of the Union List.

The Union List runs to entry 97 and holds defence, foreign affairs, railways, banking, the Reserve Bank, atomic energy, the census and citizenship. The State List runs to entry 66 and holds public order, police, public health, land, agriculture and local government. The Concurrent List runs to entry 47 and holds criminal law and procedure, marriage and divorce, forests, electricity and economic planning. The numbers are the schedule’s own, and some entries have since been deleted or given letters.

The lists change, and two dated cases show how. The 101st Amendment received assent on 8 September 2016. It added Article 246A, which lets Parliament and every state legislature make laws on the goods and services tax (GST), with Parliament alone for supplies between states. Footnotes in the edition record that it deleted Union List entry 92 and State List entries 52 and 55 from 16 September 2016. GST took effect on 1 July 2017, with a ceremony in Parliament’s Central Hall at midnight on 30 June, the Press Information Bureau announced.

On 25 July 2024 a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court decided Mineral Area Development Authority v. Steel Authority of India by 8 to 1. Commentary in Bar and Bench reports that the Court held states can tax mineral rights under State List entry 50, subject to limits Parliament may set, and that royalty paid by a mine lessee is not a tax. One judge dissented.

The lists are also contested. From 3 January 1977 the 42nd Amendment put education, forests, the protection of wild animals and birds and the administration of lower courts on the Concurrent List. A petition in the Madras High Court argues that moving education breached the Constitution’s basic structure. In September 2022 a bench sent it to a larger bench, LiveLaw reported.

The Eighth: 22 languages

The Eighth Schedule lists Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. The original had 14, according to the Constitution of India archive, and it came out of the Constituent Assembly’s language compromise, which our account of the Assembly describes. Sindhi was added by the 21st Amendment (10 April 1967), Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali by the 71st (31 August 1992), Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali by the 92nd (7 January 2004). The 96th Amendment changed the spelling “Oriya” to “Odia” on 23 September 2011.

The schedule is tied to two articles, as the Ministry of Home Affairs explains. Article 344 has the President appoint a commission with members representing the listed languages, to advise on the progressive use of Hindi in the Union’s work. Article 351 makes it the Union’s duty to spread Hindi and enrich it from the other listed languages. The Ministry’s note says the schedule appears to have been intended to promote the progressive use of Hindi and its enrichment. It does not decide the official language of a state. Under Article 345 each state legislature chooses its own, from the languages in use in the state or Hindi.

The 2011 Census recorded 22 Scheduled and 99 non-Scheduled languages, the Press Information Bureau reported in August 2025. On 11 February 2025 the Ministry told Lok Sabha that there are demands from time to time to add languages, Gorboli and Rajasthani among them. It said there are no fixed criteria and that attempts by the Pahwa (1996) and Sitakant Mohapatra (2003) committees to set them had been inconclusive. A Ministry note on the schedule lists 38 languages with demands pending, among them Bhojpuri, Tulu, Khasi and Rajasthani.

The Ninth and Tenth: a shield for land laws and a rule on defection

Article 31B, inserted with the Ninth Schedule in 1951, says the Acts listed there are not void for clashing with fundamental rights. The first entry is the Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1950, and the list runs to 284 entries in the edition. On 11 January 2007 a nine-judge bench decided I.R. Coelho v. State of Tamil Nadu. As summarised by Justice Sunil Ambwani, the Court held that laws added to the schedule after 24 April 1973, the day of the Kesavananda Bharati ruling, can be challenged if they damage the Constitution’s basic structure. A law the Court had already upheld could not be reopened.

The Tenth Schedule deals with defection, a legislator leaving the party that put them up. Paragraph 2 disqualifies a member who voluntarily gives up party membership, or who votes or abstains against the party’s direction without permission and is not forgiven within 15 days. A party’s merger with another protects its members only if at least two-thirds of its legislators agree (paragraph 4). The 91st Amendment, effective 1 January 2004, deleted paragraph 3, which had excluded a “split” of the party from disqualification.

The Speaker or Chairman decides, and paragraph 7 barred the courts. In Kihoto Hollohan v. Zachillhu, the five-judge Supreme Court gave its conclusions on 12 November 1991 and its reasons on 18 February 1992. By 3 to 2 it upheld the schedule but struck down paragraph 7, because a change to the courts’ powers needed ratification by half the states. It held that the Speaker acts as a tribunal whose decisions can be reviewed for constitutional violations, bad faith, breach of natural justice and perversity. Two judges would have struck down the whole amendment.

On 21 January 2020, in Keisham Meghachandra Singh v. Speaker, Manipur Legislative Assembly, Justice R. F. Nariman wrote that a Speaker should decide such petitions within three months absent exceptional reasons. He added that Parliament may consider handing them to a permanent tribunal headed by a retired Supreme Court judge or High Court chief justice.

The Eleventh and Twelfth: powers for panchayats and municipalities

The last two schedules list the subjects that village councils (panchayats) and city bodies may handle. The Eleventh lists 29, from agriculture and drinking water to rural roads and the public distribution system. The Twelfth lists 18, including town planning, water supply, fire services and slum improvement. Articles 243G and 243W say a state legislature may by law give these bodies powers over the listed subjects, so the schedules name the subjects and each state’s own law decides how much passes down.

The Press Information Bureau’s backgrounder of 24 April 2026 counts more than 2.5 lakh panchayats with about 24.04 lakh elected representatives, 49.75 per cent of them women.