Constitution, Social Justice and Human Rights Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The right to convert is not allowed.

Article 25 guarantees every person the freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion, subject to public order, morality and health. In Rev. Stainislaus v. State of Madhya Pradesh (1977) the Supreme Court held that the right to propagate means the right to spread one's religion by exposition of its tenets, not a right to convert another person, since that would impinge on the other person's own freedom of conscience.

Preaching and propagating are the propagation the Article names, and practising religion is expressly protected, so those options all describe permitted activity.

Answer: C

None of these are Directive Principles of State Policy.

All three are Fundamental Rights in Part III of the Constitution. Equality before law is in Article 14. Freedom of speech and expression, of peaceful assembly without arms and of association are in Article 19(1)(a), (b) and (c). These rights are justiciable: a citizen can go to the High Court or Supreme Court to enforce them.

The Directive Principles in Part IV, such as equal pay for equal work or a uniform civil code, are guidelines for the state and are not enforceable in court. Since none of the three is in Part IV, 'all' and 'some' are wrong, and the rights are plainly in the Constitution, so the last option is wrong too.

Answer: C

Habeas corpus means the prisoner be presented before the judge.

The Latin phrase means 'you may have the body'. A writ of habeas corpus orders the person or authority holding someone in detention to produce the detained person before the court, so that the court can examine whether the detention is lawful and order release if it is not. In India the Supreme Court issues it under Article 32 and High Courts under Article 226.

Free legal aid comes from Article 39A and the Legal Services Authorities Act, and access to a lawyer from Article 22(1). Release follows only if the court finds the detention unlawful, so the writ does not itself mean the under-trial is released.

Answer: C

Providing a lawyer to the complainant is not a duty of the employer.

Section 19 of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013 lists the employer's duties. They include providing a safe working environment, displaying at a conspicuous place the penal consequences of sexual harassment and the order constituting the Internal Complaints Committee, and organising workshops and awareness programmes for employees and orientation for ICC members.

The Act also asks the employer to assist a woman who chooses to file a criminal complaint, but it does not require the employer to engage a lawyer for her, so the other three options are duties and this one is not.

Answer: C

The order that cannot be passed is to send the juvenile to prison.

Under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, a child in conflict with law is never placed in a police lock-up or jail. Section 18 lists the orders a Juvenile Justice Board can pass on finding that a child committed an offence, among them directing the child to take part in group counselling, ordering community service, and ordering the child or the parent or guardian to pay a fine, as well as probation or a stay of up to three years in a special home.

So the other three are permitted orders, while imprisonment is contrary to the Act's rehabilitative scheme.

Answer: A

The key is both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A).

(A) is true: Article 15(3) allows the state to make special provisions for women and children, and Article 15(4) allows special provisions for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes, the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, as exceptions to the ban on discrimination.

(R) gives the reason behind these provisions. The framers recognised that formal equality alone would leave historically disadvantaged groups behind, and that the nation could not develop as a whole unless they were brought on par with the rest. Because this is the rationale for (A), the codes saying (R) does not explain (A), or that either is false, are wrong.

Answer: B

The right to hunt animals would not be under the community's control.

The Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (PESA) gives the gram sabha and panchayats in Scheduled Areas ownership of minor forest produce, management of minor water bodies, and the power to approve plans, programmes and projects for social and economic development before they are implemented, along with a right to be consulted before land is acquired.

PESA confers no hunting right. Hunting of wild animals is governed by the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, which prohibits it for scheduled species whoever lives in the area. So options on minor forest produce, projects and minor water bodies all describe powers PESA does give.

Answer: B

The right can be enforced under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 lets a magistrate order a person with sufficient means to pay monthly maintenance to a wife, children, or a father or mother unable to maintain themselves. Elderly poor parents can therefore claim support from their children through a quick summary proceeding. (The provision now continues in the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023.)

Section 128 deals with enforcing a maintenance order once it has been made under Section 125, not with the right itself, and Sections 75 and 77 concern warrants of arrest.

Answer: B

The Act covers children 6-14 years of age.

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 gives effect to Article 21A of the Constitution, inserted by the 86th Amendment in 2002, which makes free and compulsory education a fundamental right for every child between 6 and 14 years. The Act came into force on 1 April 2010 and covers elementary education, Classes I to VIII.

The range 6-12 would cover only primary schooling, 6-10 even less, and 6-18 extends to secondary and higher secondary education, which the Act does not guarantee.

Answer: B

Human rights call for (a), (b), (c): recognition, respect and dignity.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights opens with the recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family, and its first article says all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Human rights therefore demand that every person be recognised as a bearer of rights, treated with respect, and protected in their dignity.

Disparity (d), unequal treatment, is what human rights seek to remove, so every option including (d) is wrong.