Define Federalism. Explain the Distribution of powers in the sphere of Legislation as per the Indian Constitution 

Federalism

• Federalism refers to a political system that possesses Constitutionally provided and guaranteed distribution of powers between a national government and several regional governments.

Legislative Relations 

• There are two aspects to the distribution of legislative powers between the Centre and States in our Constitution.
  • Territorial Distribution of Powers
  • Subject Distribution

Territorial Distribution of Powers 

• The powers are distributed between the union and State governments territorially.
• The Union Government possess the powers over the entire territory of India while the States have jurisdiction over their own territories.
• The Central Government has extra-territorial jurisdiction which means that its laws govern not only persons and property within India but also Indian citizens and their properties located in any corner of the world.
• In contrast, the State legislatures do not possess jurisdiction outside their own territory.

Subject Distribution 

• The Constitution distributes the legislative subjects between the Union Government and States in an elaborate scheme. There are three Lists of distribution.

List I (Union List) 

• contains the subjects and powers exclusively allotted to the union parliament. There are 100 subjects here including defence, foreign affairs, banking, currency

List II (State List) 

• contains the subjects that are exclusively allotted to the State governments. There are 59 items including public order, and police, public health, local government, agriculture, forests, fisheries

List III (Concurrent List) 

• Contains 52 items including criminal law and procedure, civil procedure, marriage, and education.
• This list is called as Concurrent List.
• Both the union and State governments have powers over these subjects.
• But when there occurs a clash between the union and State governments the law of the parliament will prevail.
• Residuary powers
• Any subject not mentioned in the above three lists will automatically come under the jurisdiction of the Union Government.
• Our Constitution broadly follows the legislative distribution of powers provided in the Government of India Act 1935 enacted during the British colonial era.