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Human Rights of Disadvantaged Group
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
LLM · Group 4 Human Rights Law
2025-26 Examination
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LLM Group 4 Human Rights Law Human Rights of Disadvantaged Group 2025-26 Question Paper with Solutions
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First published on munotes.in on 11 September 2026.
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Model answers written and edited by the munotes.in editorial desk.
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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 2025-26 examination.
The law in these answers is stated as at September 2026, and four changes date most textbooks here. State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh, 1 August 2024, held by seven judges that a State may SUB CLASSIFY within the Scheduled Castes and overruled E.V. Chinnaiah. Janhit Abhiyan, 7 November 2022, upheld the ten per cent economically weaker sections quota and held that excluding the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and backward classes from it does not breach the basic structure. Aligarh Muslim University v. Naresh Agarwal, 8 November 2024, overruled Azeez Basha so that a statutory institution can be a minority institution. And the four labour codes, which govern the unorganised worker and for the first time the gig and platform worker, were brought into force on 21 November 2025.
Contents
The questions below are the paper as the University of Mumbai set it at the 2025-26 examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2025-26 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.
Q.1.Critically examine the concept of disadvantaged groups in India. How does the Constitution seek to protect their rights and promote social justice?[25]
Answer
For full marks, cover: begin with a point almost no script makes, that the Constitution NOWHERE USES the expression "disadvantaged group" and instead identifies specific groups by specific devices, and that this matters because it decides who can claim what. Then set out the four constitutional techniques, prohibition, protective discrimination, horizontal application and institutional machinery, because that structure is what turns a list of articles into an argument. The critical part must engage with the two live controversies: whether disadvantage is a social fact or an economic one, which is what Janhit Abhiyan decided in 2022, and whether the categories have become frozen. Use Indra Sawhney and Jarnail Singh as the worked authorities.
The concept, and why the Constitution avoids the word
A disadvantaged group, in human rights usage, is a collectivity whose members are unable to enjoy rights formally available to everyone because of a characteristic they did not choose and cannot readily change. The disadvantage is STRUCTURAL, which is what distinguishes it from individual misfortune: it persists across generations, it operates through private conduct as much as through State action, and formal equality does not remove it.
The Indian Constitution does not use the expression. It identifies particular groups by particular devices and attaches particular consequences to each, and the differences are legally decisive.
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are defined by Articles 341 and 342 as the castes, races or tribes SPECIFIED BY PRESIDENTIAL ORDER, with Parliament alone able to include or exclude by law. Membership is therefore a matter of listing and not of proof.
Socially and educationally backward classes are not listed in the Constitution. Article 340 empowers the President to appoint a commission to investigate their condition, Article 15(4) and Article 16(4) permit special provision and reservation for them, and identification is made by the State on evidence, which is why it is constantly litigated.
Religious and linguistic minorities are protected by Articles 29 and 30, and again the Constitution defines neither. T.M.A. Pai Foundation v. State of Karnataka, (2002) 8 SCC 481, held by eleven judges that for the purposes of Article 30 a minority is to be determined STATE WISE, since the reorganisation of States on linguistic lines makes the State the unit.
Women and children are addressed by an enabling provision, Article 15(3), which permits the State to make any special provision for them, and by Articles 23, 24, 39(e) and (f) and 42.
Persons with disabilities are mentioned nowhere in Part III. Their protection is statutory, through the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 enacted to implement the Convention of 2006, and constitutional only through Articles 14 and 21.
The critical point is that these devices are not interchangeable. A Scheduled Caste member's status is conclusive because it is listed; a backward class member's status is contestable because it must be established; and a disabled person has no Part III category at all.
The four constitutional techniques
PROHIBITION. Article 14 guarantees equality before the law and equal protection of the laws to any person. Article 15(1) forbids the State to discriminate on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. Article 16(2) forbids the same in public employment, adding descent and residence. Article 17 ABOLISHES untouchability and forbids its practice in any form, making its enforcement an offence. Article 18 abolishes titles.
PROTECTIVE DISCRIMINATION. Article 15(3) permits special provision for women and children. Article 15(4), inserted by the First Amendment in 1951 after State of Madras v. Champakam Dorairajan, AIR 1951 SC 226, permits special provision for socially and educationally backward classes and for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Article 15(5), inserted in 2005, extends this to admission in educational institutions including private unaided ones, other than minority institutions under Article 30(1). Article 15(6) and Article 16(6), inserted by the Hundred and Third Amendment in 2019, permit up to ten per cent reservation for economically weaker sections. Article 16(4) permits reservation in appointments, Article 16(4A) in promotion with consequential seniority and Article 16(4B) for carry forward vacancies. Articles 330, 332 and 243D reserve seats in the legislatures and panchayats, and Article 335 requires that claims be considered CONSISTENTLY with the maintenance of efficiency of administration.
HORIZONTAL APPLICATION, which is the distinctive Indian feature. Because the disadvantage was created by society and not only by the State, several rights bind private persons directly. Article 15(2) forbids any person from denying access to shops, public restaurants, hotels and places of public entertainment, or to 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. Article 17 binds everyone. Article 23 forbids traffic in human beings and begar and other similar forms of forced labour. Article 24 forbids the employment of a child below fourteen in a factory, mine or other hazardous employment. Parliament implemented these through the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
INSTITUTIONAL MACHINERY. Article 338 creates the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, Article 338A the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, inserted by the Eighty-ninth Amendment in 2003, and Article 338B the National Commission for Backward Classes, inserted by the Hundred and Second Amendment in 2018. Article 350B provides a Special Officer for linguistic minorities. Statutory bodies follow: the National Commission for Minorities under the Act of 1992, the National Commission for Women under the Act of 1990 and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights under the Act of 2005.
| Group | Constitutional device | How membership is established |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Castes and Tribes | Articles 341 and 342, Presidential list | By the list; Parliament alone may vary it |
| Backward classes | Articles 340, 15(4), 16(4) | By State identification on evidence, reviewable |
| Religious and linguistic minorities | Articles 29 and 30 | Undefined; determined State wise per T.M.A. Pai |
| Women and children | Article 15(3), an enabling power | By the characteristic itself |
| Group | Constitutional device | How membership is established |
|---|---|---|
| Economically weaker sections | Articles 15(6) and 16(6), from 2019 | By income and asset criteria, excluding the other reserved classes |
| Persons with disabilities | No Part III category; Articles 14 and 21 | By certification under the Act of 2016 |
What the courts have made of it
Indra Sawhney v. Union of India, 1992 Supp (3) SCC 217, is the governing authority on backwardness. A nine judge Bench upheld the reservation of twenty seven per cent of Central services for other backward classes, and laid down the framework that still governs: caste may be the starting point for identifying a backward class among Hindus, the CREAMY LAYER among the backward classes must be excluded, total reservation should ordinarily not exceed FIFTY PER CENT save in extraordinary situations, there can be no reservation in promotions under Article 16(4), and there can be no reservation on economic criteria alone.
Parliament reversed the last two propositions by amendment. Article 16(4A) restored reservation in promotion, and Articles 15(6) and 16(6) introduced economic criteria in 2019.
Jarnail Singh v. Lachhmi Narain Gupta, decided on 26 September 2018 by a five judge Bench, revisited M. Nagaraj v. Union of India on promotion. It held that the requirement in Nagaraj that the State collect quantifiable data showing the BACKWARDNESS of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes is contrary to Indra Sawhney, since the presidential list already establishes backwardness, and to that extent Nagaraj was declared bad. It simultaneously held that the CREAMY LAYER principle applies to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as well, which was a significant extension. The requirement of data on INADEQUACY of representation and on the effect on efficiency of administration survives.
Janhit Abhiyan v. Union of India, decided on 7 November 2022, upheld the Hundred and Third Amendment by three to two. The majority held that reservation on economic criteria alone does not violate the basic structure, that the fifty per cent ceiling from Indra Sawhney is not inflexible and does not apply to the separate economically weaker sections quota, and, most controversially, that the EXCLUSION of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the non creamy layer of the backward classes from the economically weaker sections quota does not breach the basic structure, since they are already provided for. The dissent held the exclusion to be discrimination on the very ground the Constitution forbids.
The political representation route, and the most recent development
Social justice in the constitutional scheme is not only about seats in colleges and posts in the services. Articles 330 and 332 reserve seats in the House of the People and in the State Legislative Assemblies for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Article 243D reserves seats in panchayats including not less than one third for women, and Article 243T does the same for municipalities. The Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act, 2023 inserted Articles 330A, 332A and 334A to reserve one third of the seats in the House of the People and in the State Legislative Assemblies for women, with the reservation to take effect after the first census taken after the commencement of the amendment and the delimitation exercise that follows it. It is the largest addition to the protective scheme since 1950 and it operates on a condition precedent that has not yet been satisfied.
State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh, decided on 1 August 2024, is the most significant recent change to the concept itself. A bench of SEVEN judges held by six to one that a State may SUB CLASSIFY within the Scheduled Castes for the purpose of reservation, and overruled E.V. Chinnaiah v. State of Andhra Pradesh of 2004, which had held that the Scheduled Castes notified under Article 341 form a homogeneous class incapable of subdivision. The reasoning is that the presidential list is a device for identification and not a declaration that every caste within it suffers identical disadvantage, so that a State may give preferential treatment to the more marginalised within the list, provided the sub classification rests on quantifiable and demonstrable data and does not amount to reserving the whole quota for one group.
The decision matters for the concept of a disadvantaged group because it accepts, for the first time at that strength, that disadvantage is a MATTER OF DEGREE WITHIN a protected category and not only a boundary between categories. Read with Jarnail Singh, which brought the creamy layer into the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in 2018, the direction of travel is towards a more finely targeted and more evidence dependent scheme, and away from the flat presidential list of 1950.
The critical assessment
Disadvantage has been redefined. From 1950 to 2019 the constitutional theory of disadvantage was SOCIAL: the harm was caste based exclusion and untouchability, and poverty alone was expressly held insufficient in Indra Sawhney. The 2019 amendment and Janhit Abhiyan introduced a second and different theory alongside it. Whether the two can coexist coherently is the central unresolved question in this area.
The categories have hardened. A presidential list is administratively convenient and it freezes the group. It also produces internal inequality, because the most advanced sub castes within a list capture a disproportionate share, which is the problem sub classification within the Scheduled Castes attempts to address and which Jarnail Singh approached from the other direction by importing the creamy layer.
The horizontal rights are under enforced. Article 17 has been in force since 1950 and untouchability persists; the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 had to be passed sixty three years later for a practice Article 17 already prohibited.
Some groups have no category at all. Persons with disabilities, transgender persons before National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India, (2014) 5 SCC 438, and internal migrants are disadvantaged in the ordinary sense and have no constitutional device of their own, so their protection depends entirely on Articles 14 and 21 and on statute.
Conclusion. The Constitution protects disadvantaged groups without ever naming the concept, and that is a deliberate design rather than an omission. It identifies specific groups by specific devices, a presidential list under Articles 341 and 342, an evidentiary finding for backward classes, an undefined and State wise category for minorities under T.M.A. Pai, and an enabling power for women and children, and it then deploys four techniques: prohibition in Articles 14 to 18, protective discrimination in Articles 15(4) to 16(6) and 330 to 335, horizontal application in Articles 15(2), 17, 23 and 24, and institutional machinery in Articles 338, 338A and 338B. The judicial settlement was made in Indra Sawhney in 1992, with caste as a starting point, the creamy layer excluded and a fifty per cent ceiling, and Parliament has since amended around three of those propositions. What is genuinely unresolved is conceptual: after Janhit Abhiyan on 7 November 2022 India operates two competing theories of disadvantage, one social and one economic, and the majority's holding that the socially disadvantaged classes may be excluded from the economic quota because they are already provided for is the point on which the coherence of the whole scheme now rests.
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