Constitution, Social Justice and Human Rights Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The branches are the executive, legislative and judicial branches.

The Constitution creates the three organs of the State, the legislature (Parliament and the state legislatures), the executive (the President, the Council of Ministers and the administration) and the judiciary. Each draws its powers from the Constitution and must act within its limits, which is why laws and executive actions that exceed those limits can be struck down.

'Parliamentary', 'provincial' and 'bureaucratic' are not the third organ of government; they describe a form of government, a level of government and the administrative machinery.

Answer: A

The Constituent Assembly took almost three years to draft the Constitution.

The Assembly first met on 9 December 1946 and adopted the Constitution on 26 November 1949, a period of 2 years, 11 months and 18 days. After partition its membership was 299.

Four, five and six years all overstate the time taken.

Answer: B

The Constitution was adopted by the Constituent Assembly of India.

The Constituent Assembly, elected indirectly by the provincial legislatures in 1946, framed the Constitution and adopted it on 26 November 1949, now observed as Constitution Day. It came fully into force on 26 January 1950.

The Drafting Committee under B. R. Ambedkar prepared the draft but could not adopt it; adoption was by the Assembly as a whole. The Supreme Court and Parliament were themselves created by the Constitution and came into being only after it took effect.

Answer: A

The correct matching is a-iv, b-i, c-ii, d-iii.

• (a) The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 covers women in a 'relationship in the nature of marriage', so it includes live-in relationships (iv).
• (b) Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code punishes cruelty to a married woman by her husband or his relatives (i).
• (c) Sexual harassment of women at the workplace was first addressed by the Supreme Court's Vishaka guidelines (1997), later replaced by the 2013 Act (ii).
• (d) Section 377 was read down in Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India (2018), decriminalising consensual sex between adults of the same sex (iii).

The other codes misplace at least two of these well-known pairings.

Answer: D

The Article is 45.

As originally enacted, Article 45, a Directive Principle, said that the State shall endeavour to provide, within ten years of the commencement of the Constitution, free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of 14 years. The 86th Amendment (2002) made elementary education a fundamental right under Article 21A, for children aged 6 to 14, and recast Article 45 to deal with early childhood care and education below the age of six.

Of the options, only Article 45 has carried this provision. Article 39 lists other principles of policy, including protection of children's health, and Articles 72 and 79 deal with the President's pardoning power and the constitution of Parliament.

Answer: A

Article 22 declares that everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security.

Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) reads that everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to the realisation of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for dignity and the free development of personality.

Social welfare, social policy and social service are related ideas, but the right the article names is social security.

Answer: C

The key gives 9th August 1990.

The National Commission for Women was set up under the National Commission for Women Act, 1990, and the Commission was constituted in January 1992. The Bill was therefore passed by Parliament in 1990, the only year among the options in which it could have been.

1970 and 1980 are before the Bill existed, and by 2000 the Commission had already been working for eight years.

Answer: D

The answer is All the above.

Human rights are commonly defined as the rights inherent in our nature as human beings, held simply because we are human (A); as the rights without which we cannot live as human beings, with dignity (C); and in a constitution such as India's, the most important of them are guaranteed as fundamental rights (B).

Each statement captures one side of the general definition, so choosing any one of them alone would be incomplete.

Answer: B

The first UN instrument is the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, 1998.

On 9 December 1998, the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, known as the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. It was the first UN instrument to recognise the importance and legitimacy of their work.

The three 1993 declarations in the other options do not exist; 1993 is the year of the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights.

Answer: D

Section 2 defines human rights as rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual.

Section 2(1)(d) of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 defines human rights as the rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual guaranteed by the Constitution or embodied in the International Covenants and enforceable by courts in India.

The other options replace equality and dignity with religious, electoral or constitutional freedom, which are not the words of the definition.