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Law and Social Transformation of India
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
LLM · Foundation Course
2018 Examination
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LLM Foundation Course Law and Social Transformation of India 2018 Question Paper with Solutions
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First published on munotes.in on 12 August 2026.
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The question paper reproduced here is the paper as set by the University of Mumbai at the 2018 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 that reaches almost every question. The Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act were replaced on 1 July 2024 by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, so where a question asks about a section of the old Code by number, the answer gives that section and its successor. Section 89 of the Code of Civil Procedure was substituted by the Mediation Act, 2023. The reservation of one third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and the State assemblies for women was notified into force on 16 April 2026 and operates after the next census and delimitation. And on 1 August 2024 seven judges held that a State may sub-classify within the Scheduled Castes.
Contents
The questions below are the paper as the University of Mumbai set it at the 2018 examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2018 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 · 20 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
Q.1Make a critical analysis of Prison Reforms in India.[25]
Answer
For full marks, cover: the colonial origin of the framework; each committee and its recommendations; the constitutional jurisprudence; the data; the recent statutory changes; and a critical section that says why seventy years of recommendation have moved the numbers so little.
The framework and its origin. Prisons are Entry 4 of the State List, so competence lies with the States. The governing statute in most States remains the Prisons Act, 1894, with the Prisoners Act, 1900 and the Transfer of Prisoners Act, 1950. The 1894 Act followed the Macaulay Committee on Prison Discipline (1835), which expressly rejected reformation in favour of deterrence, and the jail conferences of 1877, 1889 and 1892. It regulates accommodation, discipline, employment and punishment; it says nothing about reformation, rehabilitation, parole, classification by need, or the position of women and children in custody. The Indian Jails Committee of 1919 to 1920 under Sir Alexander Cardew was the first official body to state that reformation is the primary object of prison administration, and its recommendation has been repeated ever since without the statute being replaced.
The committees.
Mulla Committee (All India Committee on Jail Reforms, 1980 to 1983): a National Policy on Prisons; an all-India prison service; classification only by security and reform needs; complete separation of undertrials from convicts; alternatives to imprisonment for petty offenders; after-care; and a bar on transferring prisoners far from their families.
Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer Committee (1987): separate institutions for women prisoners, women in the police and prison services, and care of the children of women prisoners.
Justice Amitava Roy Committee (2018), appointed by the Supreme Court: staff vacancies, legal aid in prisons, video conferencing, and speedy trial as the answer to overcrowding.
The constitutional jurisprudence. Sunil Batra v. Delhi Administration (1978) 4 SCC 494: a prisoner keeps his fundamental rights; solitary confinement under Section 30 of the 1894 Act is confined to a prisoner under a final sentence of death, and bar fetters under Section 56 need recorded reasons. Sunil Batra (II) (1980) 3 SCC 488: a letter alleging torture treated as a habeas corpus petition, with visits by the Sessions Judge and grievance boxes directed. Charles Sobraj v. Superintendent, Central Jail (1978) 4 SCC 104. Prem Shankar Shukla v. Delhi Administration (1980) 3 SCC 526: routine handcuffing is unconstitutional. Hussainara Khatoon v. State of Bihar (1980) 1 SCC 98: release of undertrials detained beyond the maximum sentence, and speedy trial as part of Article 21. Rudul Sah v. State of Bihar (1983) 4 SCC 141: compensation for a man held fourteen years after acquittal. Sheela Barse v. State of Maharashtra (1983) 2 SCC 96: women in custody. R.D. Upadhyay v. State of Andhra Pradesh (2006) 4 SCC 1: children of women prisoners. Rama Murthy v. State of Karnataka (1997) 2 SCC 642: nine identified problems and a direction for a model manual. Re-Inhuman Conditions in 1382 Prisons (2016) 3 SCC 700: Under Trial Review Committees, vacancies, video conferencing and open prisons.
The data. Prison Statistics India 2023 records about 1,332 prisons, roughly 5.3 lakh inmates, an occupancy rate of 120.8 per cent against 131.4 per cent in 2022, Delhi above 200 per cent, and 73.5 per cent undertrials.
Recent statutory change. The Model Prison Manual, 2016 and the Model Prisons and Correctional Services Act, 2023, circulated for adoption by States, which provide for parole, furlough, remission, separate accommodation for women and transgender prisoners, technology, vocational training and after-care. And Section 479 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, which re-enacts Section 436A and adds that a first-time offender shall be released on bond after one third of the maximum sentence, with a duty on the jail superintendent to apply; the Supreme Court has held it applicable to undertrials already in custody.
The critical analysis, which the question asks for.
The diagnosis has never been the problem. Mulla in 1983, Rama Murthy in 1997 and Amitava Roy in 2018 describe the same conditions. Reform has failed not for want of knowledge but because prisons are a State subject, carry no electoral constituency, and compete for funds with visible services.
The reform effort has been aimed at the wrong object. Most recommendations concern conditions inside the prison, while three quarters of the population is there because a trial has not happened. Overcrowding is a symptom of the criminal justice system's speed and of bail practice, not of prison administration, so prison reform without bail reform cannot succeed.
Judicial directions are unenforceable in detail. The Court can declare that handcuffing is unconstitutional, and it cannot supervise every escort party. Continuing mandamus in Re-Inhuman Conditions has produced Under Trial Review Committees on paper that meet irregularly.
Model laws bind nobody. The 2016 Manual and the 2023 Act are models; until a State enacts them, the 1894 Act governs.
What is genuinely new. Section 479 of the Sanhita changes the character of the obligation: release is no longer an application by a prisoner who may have no lawyer, it is a duty of a named officer. That is the first reform in decades capable of moving the undertrial figure by itself.
Conclusion. Indian prison reform is a case study in the limits of recommendation. The philosophy shifted from deterrence to reformation a century ago, the Constitution supplied the rights in 1978, and the statute governing most prisons is still the Act of 1894. The occupancy rate has begun to fall, and the reforms that will decide whether it keeps falling are bail practice, Section 479 and State adoption of the 2023 Act, not the conditions-based measures that dominate the literature.
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