Parliament can form new states and alter the areas, boundaries or names of existing states under:

Article 3 of the Constitution gives Parliament the power to reorganise the states. By law, Parliament may:

Form a new state by separating territory from any state, or by uniting two or more states or parts of states, or by uniting any territory to a part of any state.

Conditions laid down in Article 3:

• A bill for this purpose can be introduced in Parliament only on the recommendation of the President.
• Before recommending the bill, the President must refer it to the legislature of the state concerned for expressing its views within a specified period.
• However, the President (or Parliament) is not bound by the views of the state legislature, and can accept or reject them.
• Such a law can be passed by a simple majority and is not considered an amendment of the Constitution under Article 368 (Article 4).

This shows that India is "an indestructible Union of destructible states": the Union is permanent, but the boundaries of states can be changed by Parliament without their consent. This is different from the USA, which is "an indestructible Union of indestructible states".

Examples of laws under Article 3:

• The States Reorganisation Act, 1956, which reorganised states on a linguistic basis, creating 14 states and 6 Union Territories.
• Creation of Maharashtra and Gujarat (1960), Nagaland (1963), Haryana (1966), Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura (1972), Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand (2000), and Telangana (2014).
• The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, which converted the state into two Union Territories.
• Renaming: Madras State to Tamil Nadu (1969), Mysore to Karnataka (1973) and Orissa to Odisha (2011).

Related Articles:

• Article 1: India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.
• Article 2: admission or establishment of new states (territories not already part of India, such as Sikkim in 1975).
• Article 4: laws under Articles 2 and 3 are not constitutional amendments under Article 368.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Article 1 describes India as a Union of States.
• ✗Article 2 deals with admitting new states from outside India.
• ✗Article 4 says such laws are not amendments under Article 368.