Answer: A

Explanation:

Statement 1 is correct: Under Article 3 of the Constitution, a Bill for altering the name, boundaries, or area of any state can be introduced in Parliament only with the prior recommendation of the President.

Statement 2 is incorrect: The President refers the Bill to the state legislature to express its views within a specified period. However, the opinion or views of the state legislature are not binding on Parliament; Parliament can proceed with or reject the views.

Statement 3 is incorrect: A bill under Article 3 that changes state names or boundaries does not amount to a constitutional amendment under Article 368. It requires only a simple majority of members present and voting in each House of Parliament.

Answer: C

Explanation:

Statement 1 is incorrect: The Supreme Court explicitly clarified that the BNSS has not increased the maximum aggregate period of police custody. The cap remains strictly restricted to a total of 15 days.

Statement 2 is correct: The primary modification under Section 187(2) of the BNSS is the flexibility of the timeline. Investigating agencies can now seek the 15-day police custody in separate parts/spells during the first 40 or 60 days of the total permissible detention period.

Statement 3 is correct: Under Section 167 of the old CrPC, 1973, the judicial precedent (established in cases like CBI v. Anupam J. Kulkarni) mandated that police custody could only be granted during the first 15 days of remand. If an accused was sent to judicial custody on day one, the police lost the opportunity to seek police custody after the 15th day. The BNSS explicitly departs from this old regime to help investigators gather evidence when fresh leads emerge later in an investigation.

Answer: B

Explanation:

Statement 1 is incorrect: The Supreme Court held that courts and Magistrates cannot place an absolute, non-extendable outer limit on police custody at the initial stage. Doing so unlawfully forecloses the investigating agency's statutory right under the BNSS to seek further spells of custody (within the 15-day aggregate) if new evidence or bodies/materials are discovered later.

Statement 2 is incorrect: While Section 38 of the BNSS guarantees an accused person the right to meet an advocate of their choice during interrogation, the Supreme Court ruled that this does not contemplate the continuous physical presence of the advocate for the entirety of each interrogation session. The lawyer may remain within sight but cannot actively intervene or sit through the entire session.

Statement 3 is correct: The apex court mandated that actual interrogations and subsequent recoveries must be duly recorded to protect the accused against third-degree methods and coercion. However, it clarified that continuous, round-the-clock recording of the entire custody period is unnecessary.

Answer: B

Explanation:

Statement 1 is correct: The Bill inserts Section 9D into the MMDR Act, 1957. This section curbs the arbitrary fiscal power of state governments by prohibiting them from imposing new taxes, cesses, or levies on mineral rights and mineral-bearing lands. This legislation directly targets the unpredictable financial regimes created after the Supreme Court's July 2024 verdict, which had originally upheld the states' rights to tax mineral extraction independently.

Statement 2 is incorrect: While the Bill stops future state-level levies and invalidates ongoing retrospective tax actions, it explicitly states that previously collected state taxes shall not be refunded. The states are permitted to keep what they have already collected under past regimes.

Statement 3 is correct: Previously, "mineral-bearing lands" fell outside the strict regulatory boundaries of the Central government. The 2026 Amendment explicitly empowers the Union Government to regulate mineral-bearing lands based on parameters prescribed under the Act, shifting a massive portion of administrative control away from states.

Answer: C

Explanation:

Statement 1 is incorrect: The 2026 Bill removes this exact bottleneck to facilitate ease of doing business. It allows a single mining lease to cover multiple minerals. Existing leaseholders can apply to add newly discovered minerals directly into their current lease framework without wasting time and capital acquiring a fresh mining lease.

Statement 2 is correct: To strengthen domestic resource security, the Bill offers massive incentives for critical and strategic mineral mining. Leaseholders are exempted from paying any additional fees or premiums to include strategic assets—such as lithium, graphite, cobalt, nickel, gold, and silver—into an existing production lease.

Statement 3 is correct: Under the previous framework, captive mines faced heavy restrictions on selling left-over minerals in the merchant market. The 2026 amendment removes the cap on the open-market sale of minerals from captive mines once the owner's personal operational requirements are fulfilled, optimizing domestic supply chains and reducing raw material import dependencies.