Question

Under the Constitution of India, Parliament enacts legislation to implement India's obligations under an international environmental agreement. The subject ordinarily falls within the State List and no resolution under Article 252 has been passed. The source of Parliament's competence would be:

• A. Article 252
• B. Article 249
• C. Article 253
• D. Article 250

Hint:

Article 253 = "International Overdrive." When India signs an international treaty, the Parliament gets the power to legislate on any subject (even State List ones) to fulfill that commitment!

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

India follows what is called a dualist approach to international law, meaning a treaty signed by the Union executive does not automatically become enforceable law inside the country, it needs a domestic statute to give it teeth. That gap between signing a treaty and actually being able to enforce it domestically is exactly what Article 253 was written to close. It lets Parliament make laws implementing any treaty, agreement, or convention with another country, and it does this regardless of whether the subject matter would normally sit in the Union, State, or Concurrent List.

This is what separates Article 253 from the other routes by which Parliament can occasionally touch a State subject. Article 252 depends on the states themselves inviting Parliament in through resolutions, which is a state-consent route and simply is not available here since the facts say no resolution was passed. Article 249 and Article 250 both depend on specific triggering events, a Rajya Sabha declaration of national interest for the former and an operating Proclamation of Emergency for the latter, neither of which has anything to do with turning a signed international agreement into enforceable domestic legislation.

An international environmental agreement is exactly the kind of external commitment Article 253 exists to convert into binding Indian law, since without it, a State List subject like environmental regulation would otherwise stay outside Parliament's reach even though India has promised the world it will act on it.
\[ \boxed{\text{Article 253}} \]

Answer 2

Another way to reach the answer is to line up all four articles by the kind of trigger each one needs before Parliament may touch a State List subject, and see which trigger matches an international treaty with no Article 252 resolution in the picture.

1. Option (A) Article 252: triggered by the voluntary consent of two or more state legislatures through resolutions. The facts state plainly that no such resolution exists, so this trigger is absent and the option is eliminated.
2. Option (B) Article 249: triggered by a Rajya Sabha resolution, passed by a two-thirds majority of members present and voting, declaring that Parliament ought to legislate in the national interest, with the resulting law lapsing after a fixed period unless renewed. There is no Rajya Sabha resolution and no national-interest declaration in the facts, so this trigger does not match either.
3. Option (C) Article 253: triggered simply by the existence of a treaty, agreement, or convention that India has entered into with another country or at an international conference or body, with no requirement of state consent, emergency, or special resolution. An international environmental agreement is exactly such a treaty, so this is the only trigger that is actually satisfied on the facts given.
4. Option (D) Article 250: triggered only while a Proclamation of Emergency issued under Article 352 remains in force, extending Parliament's reach to State subjects for that duration alone. No Emergency is mentioned anywhere in the facts, so this trigger is also absent.

Of the four constitutional triggers, only the one under Article 253, namely the existence of an international treaty requiring implementation, is actually present in the facts of the question.

Therefore, the correct answer is Article 253.