BPSC 69th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 105 of 144

Correct — C, Article 17. The Article is headed "Abolition of Untouchability" and reads in full: "'Untouchability' is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. The enforcement of any disability arising out of 'Untouchability' shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law." Two features of that text settle the question. First, the stem's verb is "abolished", and in the whole of Part III only two Articles use it — Article 17 for untouchability and Article 18 for titles. Every other equality Article speaks the language of prohibition and non-denial: Article 14 says the State "shall not deny", Article 15 that it "shall not discriminate". Second, Article 17 is the only Fundamental Right that both abolishes a practice and declares its enforcement a punishable offence — which is precisely why it needed a companion provision. Article 35(a)(ii) reserves to Parliament, and expressly denies to "the Legislature of a State", the power to make laws "for prescribing punishment for those acts which are declared to be offences under this Part", and directs Parliament to do so "as soon as may be after the commencement of this Constitution". Parliament discharged that duty with the Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955 (Act 22 of 1955), in force from 1 June 1955, renamed the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 with effect from 19 November 1976. Section 2(a) of that Act defines "civil rights" as "any right accruing to a person by reason of the abolition of untouchability by article 17 of the Constitution" — the statute itself points back to Article 17. Article 17 sits in the Right to Equality cluster, Articles 14 to 18.

• (a)Article 14 — Article 14 is the general equality guarantee — "The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India." Untouchability is certainly an equality wrong, so a candidate who has filed it under "equality" and remembers only the first Article of that group picks 14. But Article 14 abolishes nothing, names no practice and creates no offence; and by its own words it binds only "the State" as defined in Article 12, whereas untouchability is overwhelmingly practised by private persons.
• (b)Article 15 — The most seductive wrong answer. Article 15(2) forbids any "disability, liability, restriction or condition" on grounds of caste with regard to "access to shops, public restaurants, hotels and places of public entertainment" and "the use of wells, tanks, bathing ghats, roads and places of public resort" — exactly the sites at which untouchability was historically enforced, and it too binds private persons. But Article 15 is a non-discrimination rule listing caste as one of six forbidden grounds; it never uses the word "untouchability", does not abolish it, and does not make anything an offence.
• (d)Article 22 — Article 22 is headed "Protection against arrest and detention in certain cases" and belongs to the Right to Freedom (Articles 19–22), not the Right to Equality. It covers the right to be told the grounds of arrest, the right to consult a legal practitioner of one's choice, production before a magistrate within twenty-four hours, and the separate regime for preventive detention. It has no bearing on caste or on social disability and is present only as a distance distractor.

Articles 14 to 18 of Part III form the Right to Equality. Article 14 lays down the general guarantee; Articles 15 and 16 forbid discrimination in two named fields — access to public places and facilities, and public employment; Articles 17 and 18 abolish two named social institutions, untouchability and titles. Article 17 is exceptional in three ways. It is unqualified: Article 15 carries enabling clauses (3), (4), (5) and (6) and Article 16 carries clauses (3), (4), (4A), (4B), (5) and (6) — the last inserted by the One Hundred and Third Amendment in 2019 for economically weaker sections, but Article 17 has no proviso, exception or reasonable-restriction clause on its face. It is horizontal: most Fundamental Rights operate only against "the State", but Article 17 forbids the practice "in any form", so a private individual can violate it — a feature it shares with Articles 15(2), 23 and 24. And it is only half self-executing: the abolition takes effect at once, but the offence needs a statute, which Article 35 places in Parliament's hands alone.

Reason to the answer by verb and by field rather than by association. The stem says untouchability is "abolished". Scan Part III for that verb: only Articles 17 and 18 use it, and 18 abolishes titles — so 17 is forced without needing to recall anything about caste. The single discriminating fact worth carrying is the shape of the equality block: 14 general equality, 15 non-discrimination, 16 public employment, 17 untouchability, 18 titles — untouchability is the fourth of five, Article 17. The trap is Article 15, and it is a good trap, because untouchability in lived practice meant exclusion from wells, tanks, temples, shops and roads and Article 15(2) lists precisely those places. Hold the distinction this way: Article 15 tells you what may not be done on the ground of caste; Article 17 names the institution itself, ends it, and criminalises its enforcement. Note also that the Constitution nowhere defines "untouchability" — the word is kept in inverted commas in both sentences of Article 17, leaving its content to be read as the historically understood practice rather than in any literal sense.

• Article 17 in full: "'Untouchability' is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. The enforcement of any disability arising out of 'Untouchability' shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law."
• Right to Equality = Articles 14–18: 14 equality before law, 15 prohibition of discrimination, 16 equality of opportunity in public employment, 17 abolition of untouchability, 18 abolition of titles
• Article 35(a)(ii) gives Parliament exclusively — "and the Legislature of a State shall not have" — the power to prescribe punishment for acts declared offences under Part III, which is why untouchability law is central legislation, not State legislation
• The Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955 (Act 22 of 1955) came into force on 1 June 1955 and was renamed the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 with effect from 19 November 1976 by Act 106 of 1976, after the Committee on Untouchability under L. Elayaperumal (appointed April 1965) reported in January 1969
• Section 2(a) of that Act defines "civil rights" as "any right accruing to a person by reason of the abolition of untouchability by article 17 of the Constitution"; the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 later added a separate, harsher code of offences
• The Constitution does not define "untouchability" anywhere; the term appears in inverted commas in both sentences of Article 17

• Picking Article 15 because untouchability appears as exclusion from wells, shops, tanks and roads — the very places Article 15(2) names
• Assuming the Constitution defines "untouchability"; it does not, and the inverted commas are deliberate
• Believing a State legislature can prescribe the punishment — Article 35(a)(ii) expressly denies it that power, which is why the 1955 and 1989 Acts are Central Acts

BPSC asks this as bare Article-number recall — one line, four Article numbers, no statements — and returns to the Articles 14–18 block year after year, so the numbers themselves must be memorised in order. UPSC almost never asks the number directly. It asks which category of Fundamental Right untouchability belongs to (2020), or drops "abolition of untouchability" into a list about the Right against Exploitation (2017) to test whether you can place the Article rather than recite it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under which Article of the Constitution of India does Parliament alone have the power to prescribe punishment for those acts which are declared to be offences under Part III?

  • (a)Article 32
  • (b)Article 33
  • (c)Article 34
  • (d)Article 35

  Answer(d) Article 35 — clause (a)(ii) gives Parliament, and expressly denies a State Legislature, the power to prescribe punishment for acts declared offences under Part III.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955 was renamed in 1976 as which of the following?

  • (a)The Protection of Human Rights Act, 1955
  • (b)The Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955
  • (c)The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1955
  • (d)The Civil Liberties Act, 1955

  Answer(b) The Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 — renamed with effect from 19 November 1976 by Act 106 of 1976.