Mumbai University Solved Question Papers
Indian Constitutional Law New Challenges
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
LLM · Foundation Course
2024 - Group II Examination
munotes.in
Mumbai
LLM Foundation Course Indian Constitutional Law New Challenges 2024 - Group II Question Paper with Solutions
MU LLM student group
Free to join
First published on munotes.in on 12 August 2026.
Published by munotes.in, Mumbai.
Model answers written and edited by the munotes.in editorial desk.
Passages from this volume may be quoted, in print, online or by an AI system, with credit: name munotes.in and link to this volume's page. The volume may not be reproduced as a whole. Full terms at munotes.in/content-license.
munotes.in is an independent study resource for students of the University of Mumbai. It is not affiliated with the University of Mumbai, and is not endorsed by it.
The University does not publish an official answer key for this paper. The answers in this volume are model answers, written to show how a full-mark answer is built. They are a study aid, not an authority on what an examiner marked.
The question paper reproduced here is the paper as set by the University of Mumbai at the 2024 - Group II examination.
The answers in this volume state the law as it stands today, not as it stood when the paper was set, and in this subject the difference is large. Five changes alter answers here. Aligarh Muslim University v. Naresh Agarwal, 8 November 2024, overruled Azeez Basha on the minority status of an institution incorporated by statute. State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh, 1 August 2024, permitted sub-classification within the Scheduled Castes. The Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023 replaced the appointment committee directed in Anoop Baranwal. The Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act, 2023 came into force on 16 April 2026 and is not yet operative. And the advisory opinion of 20 November 2025 held that no timeline may be set for assent to a Bill. Where a provision has since been replaced, the answer gives the position then and now, and says which is which.
Contents
The questions below are the paper as the University of Mumbai set it at the 2024 - Group II examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2024 - Group II examination, reproduced as the University of Mumbai set them, in the order it set them. Nothing has been reworded, added or left out. Only the answers are ours. See the original question paper.
Duration 3 hours · Total marks 100 · 7 questions answered
How to use this volume
Solve the paper first, under exam conditions and against the clock. Then read the answers here and mark your own. Reading a solution before attempting the question feels productive and teaches very little, because recognising an answer is not the same as being able to write one.
SECTION I
Attempt any four questions, all questions carry equal marks
any four of seven · 100 Marks
1.Explain fully, the principle of "Federalism" embodied in the constitution of India and relationship of trust and faith between Centre and States.[25]
Answer
For full marks, cover: what federalism means and why the Constitution avoids the word; the federal features and the unitary ones; the legislative, administrative and financial distribution; the case law from State of West Bengal v. Union of India to S.R. Bommai and NCT of Delhi; and then the "trust and faith" half, which is cooperative federalism, Article 263, the Goods and Services Tax Council and the Governor's office, ending with the Supreme Court's opinion of 20 November 2025.
Start with the word the Constitution does not use. Article 1(1) says India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States. Dr Ambedkar explained the choice in the Constituent Assembly: the Union is not the result of an agreement between the States, and the States have no right to secede from it. The federation is a creature of the Constitution, not of a compact, and that single sentence explains most of what follows.
The federal features are real and must be stated first. There is a written and supreme Constitution; a division of legislative power by Article 246 and the Seventh Schedule into the Union List (ninety-seven entries originally), the State List (sixty-six) and the Concurrent List (forty-seven); a rigid amending procedure for federal provisions, since the proviso to Article 368(2) requires ratification by not less than half the State legislatures for any amendment touching the election of the President, the executive or legislative powers of the Union or the States, the Seventh Schedule, the representation of States in Parliament or Article 368 itself; an independent judiciary headed by a Supreme Court with exclusive original jurisdiction over federal disputes under Article 131; and bicameralism, with the Rajya Sabha representing the States under Article 80 and the Fourth Schedule.
The unitary features are equally real, and a good answer lists them without apology. Article 3 permits Parliament to form a new State, alter boundaries and change names on the recommendation of the President and after merely ascertaining the views of the State legislature, which are not binding: no Indian State has a guaranteed territorial existence. Article 249 permits Parliament to legislate on a State List entry if the Rajya Sabha so resolves by two-thirds in the national interest; Article 250 during a Proclamation of Emergency; Article 252 at the request of two or more States; and Article 253 to implement an international treaty. Article 200 lets the Governor reserve a Bill for the President, and Article 201 gives the President an unqualified power to withhold assent. Articles 256, 257 and 365 give the Union power to direct a State and to treat non-compliance as failure of constitutional machinery. Article 356 permits President's rule. There is a single citizenship, a single integrated judiciary, All India Services under Article 312 whose officers serve the States but are controlled from the centre, and a Comptroller and Auditor General and an Election Commission common to both levels. The residuary power is with the Union under Article 248 and entry 97 of List I, the opposite of the American and Australian arrangements.
The financial distribution is where dependence bites. Articles 268 to 281 distribute taxing powers, Article 275 provides grants-in-aid and Article 280 establishes the Finance Commission every five years to recommend the distribution of net proceeds of taxes and the principles governing grants. The One Hundred and First Amendment, 2016 introduced the Goods and Services Tax, inserting Article 246A, which gives Parliament and the State legislatures concurrent power to make laws on goods and services tax, Article 269A on inter-State supply, and Article 279A establishing the GST Council. The Council's weighted voting, the Union holding one-third and all States together two-thirds, with a three-fourths majority required, is the most important institutional innovation in Indian fiscal federalism since 1950.
How the courts have described the arrangement. In State of West Bengal v. Union of India (AIR 1963 SC 1241) the Court rejected the argument that the States are sovereign and held that the Constitution is not federal in the strict sense and that Indian federalism is a matter of degree. In State of Rajasthan v. Union of India (1977) 3 SCC 592 Beg C.J. described the States as satellites of the Union. But the corrective came in S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994) 3 SCC 1, where a nine-judge bench held that federalism is part of the basic structure, that a Proclamation under Article 356 is justiciable, that the satisfaction of the President must rest on relevant material, that the floor of the House and not the Governor's opinion is the test of a government's majority, and that the dissolution of an Assembly before parliamentary approval is impermissible and can be undone. Kuldip Nayar v. Union of India (2006) 7 SCC 1 upheld the removal of the domicile requirement for the Rajya Sabha and, in doing so, described the Indian model as quasi-federal. Government of NCT of Delhi v. Union of India (2018) 8 SCC 501 and (2023) 9 SCC 1 developed the idea of collaborative federalism, holding that the Lieutenant Governor is bound by the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers except on police, public order and land, though Parliament then altered that position by the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Act, 2023.
Now the second half of the question, which most candidates ignore: the relationship of trust and faith.
The constitutional machinery for trust is thin and mostly permissive. Article 263 permits the President to establish an Inter-State Council to enquire into and advise upon disputes and to investigate subjects of common interest. The Sarkaria Commission (1988) recommended its establishment and it was set up only in 1990; the Punchhi Commission (2010) recommended that it meet at least thrice a year, which it has not. The Zonal Councils under the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 do the same work regionally. Article 261 requires full faith and credit to be given to public acts, records and judicial proceedings, and Articles 301 to 307 guarantee freedom of trade, commerce and intercourse throughout the territory of India, subject to Article 302 and to the requirement of Presidential sanction in Article 304(b), the whole scheme having been re-read by a nine-judge bench in Jindal Stainless Ltd. v. State of Haryana (2017) 12 SCC 1, which overruled the compensatory tax doctrine.
Where trust has actually broken down is the Governor's office, and a current answer must say so. The Governor is appointed by the President under Article 155, holds office during pleasure under Article 156, and is in practice a Union nominee exercising discretion under Articles 163 and 200 in a State governed by a different party. The two recurring flashpoints are the choice of the person invited to form a government, on which Bommai and Rameshwar Prasad v. Union of India (2006) 2 SCC 1 supply the law, and delay in assenting to Bills.
On the second, the law has moved twice in two years. In State of Tamil Nadu v. Governor of Tamil Nadu, decided 8 April 2025, a two-judge bench held the Governor's withholding of assent to ten Bills illegal and laid down time limits, going so far as to declare the Bills deemed to have been assented to. The President then made a Reference under Article 143(1), and on 20 November 2025 the Supreme Court delivered its advisory opinion, holding that no rigid timelines can be prescribed for a Governor or the President to act under Articles 200 and 201, that "deemed assent" is alien to the Constitution, and that these decisions are not ordinarily justiciable, while holding that a Governor may not sit on a Bill indefinitely and that a limited judicial review lies where delay is unexplained. That is the present state of the law and it should be stated exactly so.
Conclusion. The Indian Constitution is federal in its structure and unitary in its emergencies, which is why Bommai preferred to call it federal in a sense of its own rather than measure it against Wheare's classical model. The distribution of powers, the Seventh Schedule and the Article 368 proviso are genuine federal guarantees, and federalism is now part of the basic structure, so they cannot be amended away. But the relationship of trust and faith rests almost entirely on convention and on institutions the Constitution merely permits: an Inter-State Council that rarely meets, a Finance Commission whose recommendations are not binding, and a Governor who is a Union appointee. The GST Council shows what a properly constituted forum of shared decision can do, and the Presidential Reference of November 2025 shows what happens when trust fails and the parties reach instead for the Court. Federalism in India is therefore secured by law at the level of power and left to good faith at the level of practice, and it is the second that has been failing.
2.Discuss with decided cases the need to widen the nature and scope of Article 12 of the Constitution of India.[25]
Answer
For full marks, cover: the text of Article 12; why widening was needed at all, which is the growth of the State into commerce through corporate forms; the case law progression to Pradeep Kumar Biswas; the limit in Zee Telefilms; and, since the question asks about need, the post-liberalisation argument that the definition must widen further or Part III will shrink as the State withdraws.
The provision. In Part III, unless the context otherwise requires, "the State" includes the Government and Parliament of India, the Government and the Legislature of each of the States, all local authorities, and other authorities within the territory of India or under the control of the Government of India. The word "includes" makes the definition inclusive and not exhaustive, and every widening the courts have achieved rests on it.
Why widening was needed in the first place. The framers wrote Article 12 for a State that governed. Within a decade the State had become the country's largest industrialist, insurer, banker, carrier and employer, and it did that business not through departments but through statutory corporations, government companies and registered societies. If a body of that kind were outside Article 12, then the State could take a function out of the reach of Part III simply by choosing a corporate vehicle for it, and the guarantees of Articles 14 and 16 would end at the door of every public sector undertaking. That is the "need" the question asks about, and it should be stated in exactly those terms before any case is cited.
The first attempt was too narrow. University of Madras v. Shantha Bai (AIR 1954 Mad 67) applied the rule of ejusdem generis and read "other authorities" as confined to bodies exercising sovereign or governmental functions. That reading was doubted in Ujjam Bai v. State of Uttar Pradesh (AIR 1962 SC 1621) and rejected in Rajasthan State Electricity Board v. Mohan Lal (AIR 1967 SC 1857), which held that "other authorities" includes all constitutional and statutory authorities on whom powers are conferred by law, and that it does not matter that the authority also carries on a commercial activity. The Electricity Board was therefore State.
Sukhdev Singh v. Bhagatram (1975) 1 SCC 421 took the next step, holding ONGC, LIC and the Industrial Finance Corporation to be State because their regulations had the force of law. Mathew J.'s concurring opinion supplied the theory that carried the whole later development: a public corporation is an instrumentality or agency of the State, and the State cannot be permitted to escape its constitutional obligations by acting through a corporation it has itself created.
Ramana Dayaram Shetty v. International Airport Authority of India (1979) 3 SCC 489 made that theory operational. Bhagwati J. laid down the indicia: the whole share capital held by government; deep and pervasive State control; financial assistance meeting almost the entire expenditure; a monopoly conferred or protected by the State; functions of public importance closely related to governmental functions; and a department of government transferred to the body.
Ajay Hasia v. Khalid Mujib Sehravardi (1981) 1 SCC 722 removed the last formal obstacle by holding that the tests apply irrespective of the legal form: a society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 which ran an engineering college was held to be State. The Court's sentence is the one to quote: the question is not how the juristic person is born but why it has been brought into existence.
Som Prakash Rekhi v. Union of India (1981) 1 SCC 449 applied the tests to a government company, and P.K. Ramachandra Iyer v. Union of India (1984) 2 SCC 141 to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.
The settled test is Pradeep Kumar Biswas. In Pradeep Kumar Biswas v. Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (2002) 5 SCC 111 a seven-judge bench overruled Sabhajit Tewary v. Union of India (1975) 1 SCC 485 and held the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research to be State. The test: the body must be financially, functionally and administratively dominated by or under the control of the Government, that control must be particular to the body and must be pervasive, and control which is merely regulatory will not do. This is now the test, and the Ajay Hasia indicia survive only as illustrations of it.
Where the widening stopped. Zee Telefilms Ltd. v. Union of India (2005) 4 SCC 649 held the Board of Control for Cricket in India not to be State: not created by statute, no government shareholding, no financial assistance, no State-conferred monopoly, no pervasive control. The majority accepted that the Board enjoys a monopoly in fact and selects the national team, but held that these do not convert a private society into a limb of the State. Crucially it preserved a remedy under Article 226 where the Board performs public duties, following Andi Mukta Sadguru Trust v. V.R. Rudani (1989) 2 SCC 691. Federal Bank Ltd. v. Sagar Thomas (2003) 10 SCC 733 is to the same effect for private banks: even the extensive regulatory control of the Reserve Bank is regulation, not the pervasive control the test demands.
And the reason the "need" argument has become sharper since 1991. Article 12's reach is a function of how much the State owns. Liberalisation, disinvestment and public private partnership have moved airports, telecommunications, power distribution, ports, roads and a growing share of health and education out of State ownership and therefore out of Part III. BALCO Employees' Union v. Union of India (2002) 2 SCC 333 upheld the sale of the Union's majority stake and treated disinvestment as an economic policy decision not ordinarily open to judicial review; the workers who had constitutional protection on the day before the sale had none on the day after. Every such transfer narrows Part III without a single word of the Constitution being changed. That is the modern case for widening, and it is what an LLM answer is expected to argue.
The two ways the courts have responded, short of rewriting Article 12. First, the public function test under Article 226, which asks what the body does rather than what it is: Andi Mukta, Zee Telefilms and K.K. Saksena v. International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (2015) 4 SCC 670, which cautions that the duty must be a public duty and not merely a duty owed to the public. Second, horizontality: Kaushal Kishor v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2023) 4 SCC 1 held by 4:1 that the rights under Articles 19 and 21 may be enforced against non-State actors, joining Articles 15(2), 17, 20(2), 23, 24 and 29(2), which are horizontal on their own terms. If that holding is developed, the practical need to widen Article 12 falls away, because the right will run against the private actor directly.
Conclusion. The need to widen Article 12 arose because the State went into business behind corporate forms, and the courts met it by moving from ejusdem generis to statutory creation, to instrumentality and finally to the composite test of financial, functional and administrative domination in Pradeep Kumar Biswas. That widening is now complete: Zee Telefilms shows that the Court will not stretch the definition to catch a body simply because it is powerful. The need has not disappeared, it has changed shape. The threat to Part III today is not the State hiding behind a company but the State ceasing to own the enterprise at all, and no reading of the words "other authorities" can reach a genuinely private operator running a public service. The answer, if the guarantees are to survive privatisation, must come from the public function doctrine under Article 226 and from the horizontal reading in Kaushal Kishor, and not from further widening of Article 12 itself.
3.Fundamental Right to Equality" in the constitution of India aims at to bring social and economic justice in our country. - Explain, with various examples.[25]
Answer
For full marks, cover: the equality code as a group of five articles and not one; the Preamble's promise of social, economic and political justice as the stated aim; then examples under each article, drawn from decided cases; and a closing assessment of how far the aim has been met.
The claim in the question is the Constitution's own. The Preamble resolves to secure to all citizens justice, social, economic and political, and equality of status and of opportunity. Part IV then directs the State, by Article 38, to strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, shall inform all the institutions of national life, and by Article 38(2), inserted by the Forty-fourth Amendment, to minimise inequalities in income, status, facilities and opportunities. The right to equality in Part III is the enforceable edge of that programme.
The equality code is five articles and they do different work.
Article 14 guarantees equality before the law and the equal protection of the laws to any person. Article 15 forbids discrimination against citizens on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them, and by clause (2) forbids the same in access to shops, public restaurants, hotels, places of public entertainment, wells, tanks, bathing ghats, roads and places of public resort maintained wholly or partly out of State funds or dedicated to the use of the general public, which is a horizontal prohibition binding private persons. Clauses (3), (4), (5) and (6) are the enabling clauses for women and children, for socially and educationally backward classes and the Scheduled Castes and Tribes, for their admission to educational institutions including private unaided ones, and for the economically weaker sections. Article 16 guarantees equality of opportunity in matters of public employment, with clauses (4), (4A), (4B) and (6) enabling reservation. Article 17 abolishes untouchability and forbids its practice in any form, and is enforced by the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. Article 18 abolishes titles.
Article 17 is the clearest example of equality aimed at social justice, and it is the one candidates most often skip. It is absolute, subject to no exception, and it binds private individuals directly. In Indian Young Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala (2019) 11 SCC 1 Chandrachud J. held that the exclusion of menstruating women from a temple was a form of untouchability within Article 17, extending it beyond caste, which is a live and contested reading.
Now the examples, which the question asks for expressly. Take them article by article.
Under Article 14, the movement from form to substance. State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali Sarkar (AIR 1952 SC 75) struck down a power to send any case to a special court because no principle governed the selection. E.P. Royappa v. State of Tamil Nadu (1974) 4 SCC 3 held equality and arbitrariness to be sworn enemies. Shayara Bano v. Union of India (2017) 9 SCC 1 struck down instantaneous triple talaq as manifestly arbitrary, which delivered a concrete social gain to Muslim women. Joseph Shine v. Union of India (2018) 2 SCC 189 struck down the offence of adultery in section 497 of the Penal Code because it treated a wife as her husband's property and gave her no complaint of her own. Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India (2018) 10 SCC 1 read down section 377 so far as it criminalised consensual acts between adults.
Under Article 15, protective discrimination. Article 15(3) sustained maternity benefit and women-only provisions; Government of Andhra Pradesh v. P.B. Vijayakumar (1995) 4 SCC 520 upheld preference for women in State employment as within Article 15(3) read with Article 16. Article 15(4), inserted by the First Amendment after State of Madras v. Champakam Dorairajan (AIR 1951 SC 226), is the constitutional basis of reservation in education. Article 15(5), inserted by the Ninety-third Amendment, was upheld for aided institutions in Ashoka Kumar Thakur v. Union of India (2008) 6 SCC 1 and for unaided ones in Pramati Educational and Cultural Trust v. Union of India (2014) 8 SCC 1. Article 15(6), inserted by the One Hundred and Third Amendment, was upheld in Janhit Abhiyan v. Union of India (2022) SCC OnLine SC 1540 by 3:2, the Court holding that reservation on purely economic criteria is permissible and that the fifty per cent ceiling is not inviolable.
Under Article 16, the framework of reservation in employment. Indra Sawhney v. Union of India 1992 Supp (3) SCC 217 is the anchor: backwardness is social and educational; the creamy layer must be excluded; the ceiling is ordinarily fifty per cent; and there was to be no reservation in promotion, which Parliament reversed by the Seventy-seventh Amendment. M. Nagaraj v. Union of India (2006) 8 SCC 212 upheld the promotion amendments subject to quantifiable data, inadequacy of representation and administrative efficiency; Jarnail Singh v. Lachhmi Narain Gupta (2018) 10 SCC 396 dispensed with data on backwardness for Scheduled Castes and Tribes while applying the creamy layer to them in promotions. And in State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh, decided 1 August 2024, a seven-judge bench held by 6:1 that a State may sub-classify within the Scheduled Castes to give the most disadvantaged a preference, overruling E.V. Chinnaiah v. State of Andhra Pradesh (2005) 1 SCC 394. That decision is the sharpest recent example of equality being used to reach economic and social reality rather than formal categories.
Under Article 16 again, the doctrinal point that makes all of this coherent. In State of Kerala v. N.M. Thomas (1976) 2 SCC 310 the Court held that Article 16(4) is not an exception to Article 16(1) but a facet of it, an emphatic statement of what equality already contains. Without that holding, every example above would be a departure from equality; with it, they are applications of it.
Two further examples worth naming because they are outside the usual list. In Randhir Singh v. Union of India (1982) 1 SCC 618 the Court read equal pay for equal work, a directive principle in Article 39(d), into Articles 14 and 16 and made it enforceable. And in Air India v. Nergesh Meerza (1981) 4 SCC 335 a regulation terminating an air hostess's service on first pregnancy was struck down as unreasonable and arbitrary, though the Court upheld the different retirement ages, a holding that would not survive Anuj Garg v. Hotel Association of India (2008) 3 SCC 1.
Now assess, because "aims at" invites it. The equality code has delivered most where it has operated negatively, striking down a discriminatory law: adultery, triple talaq, section 377, the air hostess regulations. It has delivered unevenly where it operates positively, through reservation, because the benefit within a protected class tends to concentrate, which is precisely the problem Indra Sawhney addressed with the creamy layer and Davinder Singh with sub-classification. And it has delivered least on economic justice as such: Article 14 does not guarantee a minimum wage, land or housing, and the directive principles that do are unenforceable except so far as they have been read into Article 21. The gains on that front have come through Article 21, not Article 14, which is why Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985) 3 SCC 545 on the right to livelihood belongs in this answer.
Conclusion. The right to equality does aim at social and economic justice, and the Constitution says so in the Preamble and in Article 38. It pursues that aim by three different techniques: a prohibition on unreasoned State action under Article 14, an absolute abolition of a social practice under Article 17, and a permission to discriminate in favour of the disadvantaged under Articles 15 and 16, which after N.M. Thomas is part of equality and not an exception to it. The record is strongest where a court can strike a law down and weakest where justice requires resources rather than restraint, and the newest decisions, Janhit Abhiyan on economic criteria and Davinder Singh on sub-classification, show the code now being turned inward, on the distribution of benefits within the protected classes themselves. Equality of status has been substantially delivered by law; equality of opportunity is being delivered slowly; economic justice remains, as Article 38 admits, an endeavour.
4.Throw light on the constitutional provisions of Fundamental Right to Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Press and the new challenges of scientific development.[25]
Answer
For full marks, cover: Article 19(1)(a) and 19(2) with the two amendments; the derived right of the press and why it has no separate mention; then the third limb, which is what the syllabus calls the new challenges, and which means the internet, intermediary liability, surveillance and artificial intelligence.
Article 19(1)(a) guarantees to all citizens the right to freedom of speech and expression. A company is not a citizen and cannot claim it, though the Bennett Coleman line allows shareholders and editors to assert it. Article 19(2) permits the State to make a law imposing reasonable restrictions on the exercise of that right in the interests of eight matters, and only eight: the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, contempt of court, defamation, and incitement to an offence.
Two amendments made that clause what it is. The First Amendment, 1951 was enacted after Romesh Thappar v. State of Madras (AIR 1950 SC 124) struck down a ban on the circulation of a journal and Brij Bhushan v. State of Delhi (AIR 1950 SC 129) struck down pre-censorship, both because "public order" was not then a ground. It added public order, friendly relations with foreign States and incitement to an offence, and inserted the word "reasonable" before restrictions, which is what made the clause justiciable. The Sixteenth Amendment, 1963 added the sovereignty and integrity of India. In Kaushal Kishor v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2023) 4 SCC 1 the Court confirmed that the grounds in Article 19(2) are exhaustive and that no further restriction can be read in, even against a Minister's speech.
Freedom of the press has no separate article, and that is deliberate. The Constituent Assembly considered a separate guarantee and rejected it because, in Dr Ambedkar's words, the press has no special rights not enjoyed by the citizen. It is therefore a species of Article 19(1)(a), and the cases show how completely it has been protected in that form:
- Sakal Papers (P) Ltd. v. Union of India (AIR 1962 SC 305): an order fixing the number of pages against price was struck down; the State cannot achieve indirectly, by controlling volume, what it may not do directly.
- Bennett Coleman & Co. v. Union of India (1972) 2 SCC 788: the newsprint control order restricting page numbers was struck down; freedom of the press includes both circulation and content, and a restriction on the quantity of newsprint is a restriction on speech.
- Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) v. Union of India (1985) 1 SCC 641: customs duty on imported newsprint was examined on the footing that taxation which imperils the press is open to challenge, though the press is not immune from general taxation.
- Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting v. Cricket Association of Bengal (1995) 2 SCC 161: airwaves are public property and the government monopoly over broadcasting is not sustainable; this judgment produced the Prasar Bharati Act and the licensing of private broadcasters.
- Printers (Mysore) Ltd. v. Assistant Commercial Tax Officer (1994) 2 SCC 434 and Express Publications v. Union of India (2004) 11 SCC 526 complete the line.
Now the third limb, which is the one the question is really testing.
The internet is within Article 19(1)(a), and shutting it down is a restriction that must satisfy Article 19(2). Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India (2020) 3 SCC 637, arising out of the suspension of internet services in Jammu and Kashmir, held that the freedom of speech and the freedom to practise a profession through the medium of the internet are constitutionally protected, that an order of suspension under the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services Rules, 2017 must be published and is subject to judicial review, that suspension cannot be indefinite, and that the doctrine of proportionality applies. In Faheema Shirin v. State of Kerala (2019 SCC OnLine Ker 2976) the Kerala High Court held that the right to access the internet is part of the right to education and of the right to privacy under Article 21.
Criminalising speech online. Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) 5 SCC 1 is the leading case and must be given in three parts. Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 was struck down as vague and overbroad, the Court holding that expressions such as "grossly offensive" and "menacing character" have no manageable standard and that the section fell foul of Article 19(1)(a) without being saved by Article 19(2). Section 69A, on blocking, was upheld because it is narrowly drawn, requires reasons and provides a hearing under the 2009 Rules. Section 79(3)(b) was read down so that an intermediary loses safe harbour only on actual knowledge through a court order or a government notification, and not on a private complaint, because otherwise every intermediary would remove lawful content to protect itself. The Court also restated the Ram Manohar Lohia triad: discussion and advocacy are protected; only incitement may be restricted.
Intermediary regulation is the current battleground. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 imposed due diligence, traceability of the first originator for significant social media intermediaries and a three-tier grievance mechanism over digital news and streaming, and are under challenge in several High Courts. The 2023 amendment created a Fact Check Unit empowered to identify fake or misleading information about the business of the Central Government, and Rule 3(1)(b)(v) was struck down by the Bombay High Court in Kunal Kamra v. Union of India on 20 September 2024 as violating Articles 14 and 19(1)(a), the Court holding that the State cannot be the judge in its own cause on the truth of speech about itself.
Surveillance and privacy are part of the same challenge. Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017) 10 SCC 1 held privacy to be a fundamental right under Article 21 and laid down the test of legality, legitimate aim, proportionality and procedural safeguards. Speech and privacy are linked in practice, because a speaker who knows he is watched does not speak. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 is the legislative answer, and its exemptions for State instrumentalities under section 17 are the principal criticism made of it. People's Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India (1997) 1 SCC 301 remains the authority on telephone tapping.
What is genuinely new. Three problems have no settled answer and should be named as open. Scale, because a defamatory statement now reaches millions instantly and the ordinary remedies of injunction and damages are calibrated to print. Automation, because content is now ranked and removed by algorithm, so the decision that restricts speech is not made by any identifiable person and is therefore hard to test against Article 19(2). And synthetic media, because generative systems can fabricate a speaker's own words and image, which means the harm is not that a false statement is published about a person but that a false statement is published as that person, a wrong the existing law of defamation and the existing grounds in Article 19(2) address only awkwardly. The deepfake litigation before the Delhi High Court and the advisories issued to intermediaries in 2024 and 2025 are the beginnings of a response, not a settled law.
Conclusion. Article 19(1)(a) has proved remarkably durable: written for a country of newspapers and public meetings, it has absorbed broadcasting, cable, the internet and social media without amendment, because the Court has held consistently that the medium does not alter the right. Freedom of the press needed no separate clause, and Sakal Papers and Bennett Coleman show why the protection of circulation matters as much as the protection of content. The pressure now comes from a direction the framers could not have anticipated: not the State suppressing a publisher, but the State regulating a private intermediary that decides what millions read, and technology that can manufacture speech no one uttered. Shreya Singhal supplied the method, which is to insist that any restriction fit within one of the eight grounds and be narrowly drawn, and Kunal Kamra shows the method still working. Whether it can survive automated moderation and synthetic media is the open question of the next decade.
5.Discuss critically the role of Election Commission in Indian Democracy.[25]
Answer
For full marks, cover: Article 324 and the Commission's composition; the width of its power and the limit on it; what it has actually achieved; and then, because the question says "critically", the four standing criticisms, which are appointment, the non-statutory Model Code, the absence of power over party finance and internal democracy, and enforcement against the ruling party of the day.
The constitutional position. Article 324(1) vests in the Election Commission the superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of electoral rolls for, and the conduct of, all elections to Parliament, to every State legislature and to the offices of President and Vice-President. Article 324(2) leaves the number of Commissioners to the President. Article 324(5) protects the Chief Election Commissioner by providing that he shall not be removed except in like manner and on the like grounds as a Judge of the Supreme Court, and that his conditions of service shall not be varied to his disadvantage after appointment; an Election Commissioner may be removed only on the recommendation of the Chief Election Commissioner. Articles 325 and 326 forbid exclusion from the roll on grounds of religion, race, caste or sex and provide for adult suffrage at eighteen, the age lowered by the Sixty-first Amendment, 1988. The working law is the Representation of the People Acts of 1950 (rolls and constituencies) and 1951 (conduct of elections, disqualifications, corrupt practices and election petitions).
The Commission has been multi-member since 1993, and T.N. Seshan v. Union of India (1995) 4 SCC 611 settled its internal working: the Chief Election Commissioner is not superior to the other Commissioners, the Commission is a multi-member body acting by majority, and the differential protection in Article 324(5) exists to secure the Commission's independence, not to create a hierarchy.
How wide is the power? Mohinder Singh Gill v. Chief Election Commissioner (1978) 1 SCC 405 called Article 324 a reservoir of power and held that where the law is silent the Commission may act to ensure a free and fair poll, subject to natural justice. A.C. Jose v. Sivan Pillai (1984) 2 SCC 656 fixed the limit: the Commission cannot act contrary to a statute, and voting machines introduced without statutory authority were bad, a defect Parliament cured by inserting section 61A into the 1951 Act in 1989. Kanhiya Lal Omar v. R.K. Trivedi (1985) 4 SCC 628 upheld the Symbols Order as within Article 324. Election Commission of India v. State of Tamil Nadu (1995 Supp (3) SCC 379) upheld the Commission's power to requisition central forces.
What the Commission has delivered. The Model Code of Conduct, enforced with real bite from 1991; the electors photo identity card; electronic voting machines, universal since 2004; VVPAT from 2013, with paper-trail verification in five randomly selected booths per Assembly segment; expenditure observers, flying squads and video surveillance; the cVIGIL application; and the conduct, at a scale no other election authority attempts, of a poll with an electorate now above ninety-six crore.
Now the criticism, which is what "critically" requires. Four heads.
First, appointment. For seventy-three years the Commission was constituted by the executive alone, with no statute, although Article 324(2) expressly contemplates one. In Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India (2023) 6 SCC 161, decided 2 March 2023, a Constitution Bench held unanimously that appointments shall be made by the President on the advice of a committee of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India, until Parliament legislated. Parliament legislated within the year: the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 replaced the Chief Justice with a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister, restoring a two-to-one executive majority on the selection committee. The Act is under challenge and the Supreme Court has not yet decided its validity. A body whose whole value lies in being trusted by the losing side is thus appointed by the winning side, and that is the criticism the Dinesh Goswami Committee made in 1990 and the Law Commission repeated in its 255th Report in 2015.
Second, the Model Code has no legal force. It binds by consensus and by the Commission's moral authority, and its sanctions, a censure, an advisory, a short campaigning ban under Article 324, are weak against a determined offender. The Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice recommended making it statutory in 2013; the Commission itself has opposed this, on the ground that a statutory code would move enforcement from itself to the courts and thereby slow it to irrelevance during a six-week campaign. Both positions are defensible and an examiner will reward the candidate who states the trade-off.
Third, the Commission has almost no power over what happens inside a party. It registers parties under section 29A of the 1951 Act but has no express power to deregister one, as it told the Court in Indian National Congress v. Institute of Social Welfare (2002) 5 SCC 685, where it was held that deregistration is possible only in narrow cases such as registration obtained by fraud. It cannot compel internal elections, cannot regulate candidate selection, and its repeated proposals to be given power to deregister and to bar candidates against whom charges have been framed for serious offences have not been enacted. On money, the reform came from the Court and not from Parliament: Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India, decided 15 February 2024, struck down the Electoral Bond Scheme and the enabling amendments to the Companies Act, the Income Tax Act and the Representation of the People Act as violating the voter's right to information under Article 19(1)(a), and ordered disclosure. Note also that the expenditure ceiling binds the candidate and not the party, which is the loophole through which most campaign money moves.
Fourth, the record of enforcement against the incumbent. The Commission's independence has varied with the personality of its members rather than with its constitutional protection, a point made bluntly by the Court in Anoop Baranwal, which observed that an Election Commissioner must be independent and that a person who is weak or a "yes man" defeats the purpose. The disqualification jurisprudence has similarly come from the judiciary: Union of India v. Association for Democratic Reforms (2002) 5 SCC 294 and PUCL v. Union of India (2003) 4 SCC 399 on candidate disclosure, Lily Thomas v. Union of India (2013) 7 SCC 653 striking down section 8(4) so that conviction disqualifies immediately, PUCL v. Union of India (2013) 10 SCC 1 on NOTA, and Public Interest Foundation v. Union of India (2019) 3 SCC 224 on publication of criminal antecedents.
Balance the criticism, because a purely negative answer is as unbalanced as a purely laudatory one. The Commission has conducted every general election since 1952 without a single one being set aside; it manages a poll larger than any other in the world within a six-week window; it enforced the Model Code against sitting governments in 1991, 1996 and after; and its independence, however imperfectly secured on paper, has in fact survived changes of government at the Union and in the States. The institution's authority is real, and it rests on a public belief that the count is honest, which is an asset no statute can create.
Conclusion. The Election Commission is the clearest example in the Constitution of an institution given enormous power in three sentences and almost no structural protection beyond the removal clause for one of its three members. Mohinder Singh Gill made Article 324 a reservoir of power and A.C. Jose confined it to the space Parliament has left, and within that space the Commission has built the machinery that makes universal adult suffrage work in practice. The criticism is not that it has failed but that its success depends on the character of the people appointed to it, and that the one reform which would make its independence structural rather than personal, a genuinely plural appointment process, was granted by the Supreme Court in March 2023 and taken back by statute nine months later. Until the challenge to the 2023 Act is decided, the strongest criticism of the Election Commission remains the manner of its own constitution.
6.Write critically on Secularism and religious fanatism in India.[25]
Answer
For full marks, cover: what Indian secularism is and how it differs from the American and French models; where it appears in the text; that it is basic structure; the leading cases from Bommai through Ismail Faruqui to Sabarimala; then the fanaticism half, meaning communal violence, hate speech, anti-conversion laws and the Places of Worship Act; and a balanced assessment.
Indian secularism is not the separation of church and State. The American model, built on the Establishment Clause, requires a wall of separation; the French model of laicite requires the State to exclude religion from the public sphere. India adopted neither. The Indian model is often called principled distance or sarva dharma sama bhava: the State has no religion of its own, treats all religions equally, and may intervene in religious affairs for the purposes of social reform and equality. The evidence of that choice is on the face of the Constitution: Article 25(2)(a) permits the State to regulate secular activity associated with religious practice, Article 25(2)(b) permits laws for social welfare and reform and for throwing open Hindu religious institutions to all classes and sections of Hindus, Article 17 abolishes untouchability outright, and Article 44 directs the State to endeavour to secure a uniform civil code. A State on the American model could do none of these things.
Where secularism appears in the text. The word was inserted in the Preamble by the Forty-second Amendment, 1976, but the concept was there from the start, in Articles 14, 15, 16, 25 to 28, 29, 30, 44, 51A(e) and 325. In Dr. Balram Singh v. Union of India, decided 25 November 2024, the Supreme Court dismissed petitions challenging the insertion of "socialist" and "secular", holding that the amendment was within the power conferred by Article 368, that the Constitution is a living document, and that the terms had by long usage acquired settled and accepted meanings.
Secularism is part of the basic structure. Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala (1973) 4 SCC 225 named it; Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain 1975 Supp SCC 1 applied it; and S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994) 3 SCC 1 gave it operative force by holding that a State government which acts against secularism can be dismissed under Article 356, upholding the dismissal of four State governments after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992. The Court there said that religion is a matter of individual faith and cannot be mixed with secular activity, and that secular activity can be regulated by the State.
The line the Court has drawn between religion and politics is the second strand. In Abhiram Singh v. C.D. Commachen (2017) 2 SCC 629 a seven-judge bench held by 4:3 that section 123(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 prohibits an appeal on the ground of the religion, race, caste, community or language of the candidate, his agent, the voter, or anyone else, reading "his" broadly and thereby making any religious appeal in an election a corrupt practice. The earlier decisions in the Hindutva cases, principally Ramesh Yeshwant Prabhoo v. Prabhakar Kashinath Kunte (1996) 1 SCC 130, which described Hindutva as a way of life rather than a religion, are widely criticised and were not reconsidered in Abhiram Singh.
Now the second half of the question, which asks about fanaticism, and this is where a critical answer is made.
Communal violence. The Constitution's answer is Article 355, the duty of the Union to protect every State against internal disturbance, and Article 356, which Bommai made the sanction for a State government that fails in its secular duty. The judicial record after major episodes has been mixed and slow, and the Court itself has said so; the National Human Rights Commission's intervention leading to the transfer of trials out of Gujarat in Zahira Habibulla Sheikh v. State of Gujarat (2004) 4 SCC 158 is the clearest instance of the constitutional machinery working, and the general failure of the proposed Communal Violence Bill to be enacted is the clearest instance of it not.
Hate speech. There is no statutory definition. The provisions used are sections 196, 197, 299 and 302 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (formerly sections 153A, 153B, 295A and 298 of the Penal Code) and section 123(3A) of the 1951 Act. In Pravasi Bhalai Sangathan v. Union of India (2014) 11 SCC 477 the Court declined to legislate and referred the question to the Law Commission, whose 267th Report (2017) recommended new offences of incitement to hatred and causing fear or alarm; nothing was enacted. Amish Devgan v. Union of India (2021) 1 SCC 1 supplied a framework, distinguishing hate speech by content, intent, harm and the standing of the speaker, and holding that the speech of a person with reach and authority carries greater responsibility. In Shaheen Abdulla v. Union of India (2022 and 2023) the Court directed the police in several States to register cases suo motu without waiting for a complaint. That is the state of the law: judicially managed, legislatively neglected.
Anti-conversion legislation. Rev. Stainislaus v. State of Madhya Pradesh (1977) 1 SCC 677 held that the right to "propagate" under Article 25(1) is a right to transmit or spread one's tenets and does not include a right to convert another person, and upheld the Madhya Pradesh and Orissa statutes requiring notice of conversion. On that foundation more than ten States now have such laws, several extending to conversion by marriage and reversing the burden of proof, and they are under challenge in several High Courts and before the Supreme Court. Whether Stainislaus correctly read Article 25, given that conscience is expressly protected by the same clause, is the strongest academic criticism available and worth stating.
Places of worship. The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 freezes the religious character of every place of worship as it stood on 15 August 1947 and bars conversion of one into another, excepting only the Ram Janmabhoomi and Babri Masjid dispute. In M. Siddiq v. Mahant Suresh Das (2020) 1 SCC 1, the Ayodhya judgment of 9 November 2019, the Court described the 1991 Act as a legislative instrument protecting secular values and observed that non-retrogression is a foundational feature of the constitutional order. The Act itself is now under challenge, and in December 2024 the Court restrained all courts from ordering surveys or passing effective orders in suits seeking to reclaim places of worship while it considers the matter, a live issue that a current answer should mention.
Two structural criticisms of Indian secularism itself, which is what separates a good LLM answer from a graduate one. First, the State's power to reform religion, given by Article 25(2)(b), has been exercised almost entirely over Hindu institutions, because that clause names them, which produces a genuine complaint of unequal treatment; the counter-argument is that Articles 25 and 26 apply to all faiths and that reform of others has been achieved through Article 14, as in Shayara Bano. Second, the essential religious practices doctrine requires a secular court to determine what a religion essentially requires, which is precisely the theological enquiry a secular State is supposed to avoid; the seven questions referred to a nine-judge bench in Kantaru Rajeevaru v. Indian Young Lawyers Association (2020) 2 SCC 1 remain undecided.
Conclusion. Indian secularism is a doctrine of engagement rather than separation, and the Constitution chose it deliberately, because a State forbidden to touch religion could not have abolished untouchability, opened temples or outlawed instantaneous divorce. That choice gives the State a reforming power the American model denies it, and it gives the courts a jurisdiction over religious practice that no secular court is well equipped to exercise. Against fanaticism the constitutional machinery is adequate on paper, secularism as basic structure, Article 356 after Bommai, an election law that makes a religious appeal a corrupt practice after Abhiram Singh, and it is weak in practice, because there is still no statutory definition of hate speech eight years after the Law Commission proposed one, because prosecution depends on the State whose own conduct is often in question, and because the Places of Worship Act is now itself contested. The failure is therefore not one of constitutional design but of enforcement, which is the harder problem to solve.
7.Write short notes on any two of the following:[25]
- (a) Nexus of politics
- (b) Appointment, transfer and removal of judges
- (c) Political Reservation to women is part of "Grass Root Democracy"
Answer
For full marks, cover: two notes at about twelve marks each, each with provisions, cases and one current fact. All three are written out below.
(a) Nexus of politics
The stem is printed in a shortened form. The same examiner sets it in full in the 2022 paper as "Nexus of politics with criminals and the business", and that is what it means: the criminalisation of politics and the entanglement of political power with organised crime and with corporate money.
The evidence and the vocabulary come from the Vohra Committee Report, 1993, submitted by the then Union Home Secretary N.N. Vohra, which recorded that criminal gangs, armed senapatis, drug mafias and smuggling groups had developed extensive networks of contact with bureaucrats, politicians and media persons, and that in some States these had established themselves as parallel governments. The Report was the first official acknowledgment of the nexus and its recommendation for a nodal agency was never fully acted upon.
The constitutional and statutory framework. Disqualification for membership is governed by Articles 102 and 191 read with sections 8 to 11A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Section 8(1) and (2) disqualify on conviction for named offences; section 8(3) disqualifies any person convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for two years or more, for the period of imprisonment and a further six years. Section 8(4), which protected a sitting legislator by suspending disqualification while an appeal was pending, was struck down in Lily Thomas v. Union of India (2013) 7 SCC 653 as beyond Parliament's competence under Articles 102(1)(e) and 191(1)(e), so conviction now disqualifies immediately. Section 123 defines corrupt practices, including bribery, undue influence and appeals on grounds of religion, race, caste, community or language, read expansively in Abhiram Singh v. C.D. Commachen (2017) 2 SCC 629.
The disclosure line of cases is the principal remedy so far. Union of India v. Association for Democratic Reforms (2002) 5 SCC 294 held that the voter's right to know the antecedents of a candidate is part of Article 19(1)(a) and directed disclosure of criminal cases, assets and educational qualifications; when Parliament answered with section 33B, that section was struck down in PUCL v. Union of India (2003) 4 SCC 399. Public Interest Foundation v. Union of India (2019) 3 SCC 224 declined to disqualify on the framing of charges, holding that to be for Parliament, but directed candidates and parties to publicise criminal antecedents; the directions were strengthened on 13 February 2020 to require a party to publish its reasons for selecting a candidate with a criminal record, and to state that winnability is not a reason. Speedy trial has been pursued through Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay v. Union of India, under which special courts for cases against sitting and former legislators were set up from 2017 and the High Courts were directed in 2021 to monitor them.
On money, the change came in 2024. Association for Democratic Reforms v. Union of India, decided 15 February 2024, struck down the Electoral Bond Scheme and the amendments that had removed the ceiling on corporate donations and the requirement to disclose them, holding that anonymous corporate funding violates the voter's right to information and that unlimited corporate contribution permits quid pro quo. That judgment addresses the business half of the nexus directly.
What has not been done. Disqualification on the framing of charges for offences punishable with five years or more, recommended by the Law Commission's 244th (2014) and 255th (2015) Reports, remains unenacted; State funding of elections, recommended by the Dinesh Goswami (1990) and Indrajit Gupta (1998) Committees, has not been introduced; and the Election Commission still has no power to deregister a party, as held in Indian National Congress v. Institute of Social Welfare (2002) 5 SCC 685.
(b) Appointment, transfer and removal of judges
Appointment. Article 124(2) provides that every Judge of the Supreme Court shall be appointed by the President after consultation with such Judges of the Supreme Court and of the High Courts as the President may deem necessary, and that in the case of appointment of a Judge other than the Chief Justice, the Chief Justice of India shall always be consulted. Article 217(1) provides for High Court judges, appointed after consultation with the Chief Justice of India, the Governor of the State and, for a Judge other than the Chief Justice, the Chief Justice of that High Court. Qualifications are in Articles 124(3) and 217(2). Article 124A, inserted by the Ninety-ninth Amendment, was struck down in 2015 and no longer exists.
The meaning of "consultation" is the whole story. First Judges Case, S.P. Gupta v. Union of India 1981 Supp SCC 87: consultation is not concurrence and the executive has the last word. Second Judges Case, Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India (1993) 4 SCC 441: overruled, the Chief Justice's opinion formed in consultation with senior colleagues has primacy, and the collegium is created. Third Judges Case, Special Reference No. 1 of 1998 (1998) 7 SCC 739: the collegium is the Chief Justice and the four senior-most Judges for Supreme Court appointments, and the two senior-most for High Court appointments and transfers. Fourth Judges Case, Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India (2016) 5 SCC 1, decided 16 October 2015: the Ninety-ninth Amendment and the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014 struck down 4:1, primacy of the judiciary in appointments being part of the basic structure. The Memorandum of Procedure directed to be revised in that case has still not been settled between the collegium and the Union.
Transfer. Article 222 empowers the President, after consultation with the Chief Justice of India, to transfer a Judge from one High Court to another. In Union of India v. Sankalchand Himatlal Sheth (1977) 4 SCC 193 the Court held that consent of the judge is not required but that a transfer must be in the public interest and never by way of punishment, and that consultation must be full and effective. The Second Judges Case added that in the matter of transfer too the opinion of the Chief Justice of India, formed in consultation with the four senior-most Judges and the Chief Justices of both High Courts, is determinative. There is no power to transfer a Judge of the Supreme Court.
Removal. A Judge of the Supreme Court may be removed only by an order of the President passed after an address by each House of Parliament supported by a majority of the total membership of that House and by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting, presented in the same session, on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity: Article 124(4). Article 124(5) leaves the procedure to Parliament, which enacted the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968: a motion signed by 100 members of the Lok Sabha or 50 of the Rajya Sabha, admitted by the Speaker or Chairman, an inquiry committee of a Supreme Court Judge, a Chief Justice of a High Court and a distinguished jurist, and a finding of guilt before the motion is taken up. Article 218 applies the same to High Court Judges. In Sub-Committee on Judicial Accountability v. Union of India (1991) 4 SCC 699 and Sarojini Ramaswami v. Union of India (1992) 4 SCC 506 the Court held that the process up to the committee's finding is not a parliamentary proceeding immune from review, and that the Speaker's admission of a motion is justiciable. No Judge has ever been removed. Justice V. Ramaswami survived in 1993 when the motion failed for want of the required majority after the committee found misbehaviour; Justice Soumitra Sen resigned in 2011 after the Rajya Sabha passed the motion. For conduct short of removal there is the in-house procedure devised in C. Ravichandran Iyer v. Justice A.M. Bhattacharjee (1995) 5 SCC 457.
(c) Political Reservation to women is part of "Grass Root Democracy"
The proposition is true of local government and, until very recently, was not true of Parliament and the State legislatures, and the whole note turns on that contrast.
At the local level the guarantee is constitutional and thirty years old. Article 243D(2) requires reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in every panchayat in proportion to their population, and Article 243D(3) requires that not less than one-third of the total number of seats in every panchayat, including the seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Tribes, be reserved for women, and that those seats be allotted by rotation to different constituencies. Article 243D(4) applies the same one-third to the offices of chairperson at every level. Articles 243T(3) and 243T(4) do the same for municipalities. These came into force with the Seventy-third and Seventy-fourth Amendments on 24 April 1993 and 1 June 1993.
The effect has been large. More than twenty States have by their own legislation raised the reservation to fifty per cent, and something above 1.4 million women now hold elected local office, which is the largest such body of women representatives anywhere. The constitutional validity of the scheme was never seriously in doubt, since Article 15(3) expressly permits special provision for women, and in K. Krishna Murthy v. Union of India (2010) 7 SCC 202 a Constitution Bench upheld reservation in local bodies while holding that reservation for backward classes in local bodies stands on a different footing from reservation in education and employment, and requires empirical enquiry, later formalised as the triple test in Vikas Kishanrao Gawali v. State of Maharashtra (2021) 6 SCC 73.
The criticisms are real and should be stated. The rotation of reserved seats under Article 243D(3) means an incumbent frequently cannot seek re-election from the same seat, which prevents the accumulation of experience; and the phenomenon commonly described as the sarpanch pati, in which an elected woman's husband exercises the office in fact, is widely documented. The counter-evidence is equally real: studies of West Bengal and Rajasthan panchayats found that women pradhans invested more in drinking water and roads and that exposure to a woman leader reduced bias against women candidates in later elections.
At the national level the position changed only in 2026. The Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act, 2023, the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, inserts Articles 330A, 332A and 239AA(2)(b) proviso to reserve one-third of the seats in the Lok Sabha, in the State Legislative Assemblies and in the Delhi Assembly for women, including one-third of the seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Tribes. But Article 334A provides that the reservation takes effect only after a delimitation is undertaken on the basis of the first census taken after the commencement of the Act, and that it ceases fifteen years after commencement. The Act was brought into force on 16 April 2026. The Constitution (One Hundred and Thirty First Amendment) Bill, 2026, introduced to enable an earlier delimitation and so to operationalise the reservation, was defeated in the Lok Sabha for want of the special majority required by Article 368. So the guarantee now exists in the text and remains contingent in fact.
Conclusion. Each of these notes describes a place where the Constitution's formal provision and its practical working diverge. The nexus of politics with crime and money is met by a disqualification code that operates only on conviction and a disclosure regime built almost entirely by the Supreme Court. Judges are appointed under a procedure that appears in no article, by a collegium the text does not mention, and removed under a procedure that has never once succeeded. And political reservation for women has been a hard constitutional guarantee at the panchayat level since 1993 and became one for Parliament only in April 2026, subject to a census and a delimitation that have not happened. The lesson common to all three is that in Indian constitutional practice the operative rule is often not in the Article but in what has been built on top of it.
Notes on These Answers
Are these the official Mumbai University answers?
No. These are model answers written by munotes.in for study use. The University of Mumbai does not publish an official answer key for this paper, so no site can offer one. Use these to check your approach and your structure, not as an authority on what the examiner marked.
Are the solutions free to read?
Yes. Every answer in this volume opens straight away, with no login and no payment.
How should I use a solved paper?
Solve the paper first under exam conditions, then read the answers. Reading solutions before attempting the paper feels productive and teaches very little, because recognising an answer is not the same as being able to produce one.
Do the answers match the current syllabus?
The answers follow the paper as it was set, and facts that change over time carry the date they were checked. Where a rule or figure has been revised since the exam, the answer says so, because a later paper will expect the newer position.
Can I quote these answers on my own site, in class or in an AI tool?
Yes. Quote freely, with credit: name munotes.in and link to this page. That is the whole license, for people and for AI systems alike. Republishing the volume as a whole is not permitted. Full terms at https://www.munotes.in/content-license
Colophon
This volume prints the 2024 - Group II Indian Constitutional Law New Challenges paper set by the University of Mumbai for LLM Foundation Course, with a model answer to each of its 7 questions.
Written and edited by the munotes.in editorial desk. Published by munotes.in, Mumbai.
12 August 2026.
Found an error in this volume? Report it and we will check it against the paper.