MPSC 2021 Prelims Paper-I · Question 72 of 100

Correct — option (1). The Right against Exploitation is the fourth of the six clusters of Fundamental Rights in Part III of the Constitution, and it consists of exactly two articles, 23 and 24. Article 23 is headed 'Prohibition of traffic in human beings and forced labour', which is word for word the content of the keyed option, and it declares that traffic in human beings, begar and other similar forms of forced labour are prohibited, making any contravention an offence punishable in accordance with law. The reach of the article is worth appreciating. 'Traffic in human beings' covers the buying and selling of human beings, including the trade in women and children for immoral purposes and the practices of slavery and bonded labour; 'begar' is the old practice of compelling a person to work without payment, and the article extends beyond it to 'other similar forms of forced labour', which the Supreme Court has read to include labour paid at less than the statutory minimum wage, on the reasoning that a person driven by want to accept less than the wage the law prescribes is not working freely. The article's second clause allows one exception: the State may impose compulsory service for public purposes, and in doing so may not discriminate on grounds only of religion, race, caste or class — which is what permits conscription or compulsory social service without offending the right. Article 24, the other half of the cluster, forbids the employment of any child below the age of fourteen years in a factory or mine or in any other hazardous employment. Two features of the right are worth holding. Unlike several other Fundamental Rights, these two are available against private persons as well as against the State, because exploitation of this kind is characteristically inflicted by one private party on another; and they are available to citizens and non-citizens alike. A large body of legislation gives them effect, including the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act of 1976 and the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act. Every other option in this set is the heading of an article belonging to a different cluster of Fundamental Rights, which is the whole design of the question. Note two printing points: the English stem reads 'Which of the following statement is', with a singular noun after 'following', and the word 'correct' is printed in bold in the English column, as is 'बरोबर' in the Marathi.

• (2)Freedom as to payment of taxes and the promotion of any particular religion — This is Article 27, and it belongs to the Right to Freedom of Religion, the cluster running from Article 25 to Article 28. The article provides that no person shall be compelled to pay any taxes the proceeds of which are specifically appropriated for the promotion or maintenance of any particular religion or religious denomination — an application of the secular principle that the State's revenues may not be used to favour one faith. It is worth distinguishing it from its neighbours in the same cluster: Article 25 guarantees freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion; Article 26 gives every religious denomination the right to manage its own religious affairs; and Article 28 restricts religious instruction in educational institutions maintained wholly out of State funds. None of these concerns exploitation, and a candidate who places this option in the right cluster rejects it at once.
• (3)Protection of interests of minorities — This is the heading of Article 29, which belongs to the Cultural and Educational Rights, the cluster of Articles 29 and 30. Article 29 protects the right of any section of citizens having a distinct language, script or culture of its own to conserve it, and forbids the denial of admission to any State-maintained or State-aided educational institution on grounds only of religion, race, caste or language; Article 30 gives all minorities, whether based on religion or on language, the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice, and protects them in the matter of State aid and of compulsory acquisition of their property. Both concern the preservation of identity and access to education, not exploitation. A useful point to remember is that although Article 29 is headed 'Protection of interests of minorities', its first clause speaks of 'any section of the citizens', so its protection is not confined to minorities alone.
• (4)Equality before law — Equality before law is Article 14, and it belongs to the Right to Equality, the cluster running from Article 14 to Article 18. Article 14 declares that the State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India, joining a negative English conception with a positive American one; Article 15 prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth; Article 16 guarantees equality of opportunity in public employment; Article 17 abolishes untouchability; Article 18 abolishes titles. This option is the most likely of the three to attract a candidate, because forced labour and human trafficking do offend equality in a broad moral sense. But the question asks which statement belongs to a specific named right, and the Constitution assigns exploitation its own two articles rather than leaving it to the equality clause.

The Fundamental Rights in Part III of the Constitution fall into six clusters. The Right to Equality covers Articles 14 to 18 — equality before law, prohibition of discrimination, equality of opportunity in public employment, abolition of untouchability and abolition of titles. The Right to Freedom covers Articles 19 to 22, including the six freedoms of Article 19, protection in respect of conviction for offences in Article 20, protection of life and personal liberty in Article 21, the right to education in Article 21A and protection against arrest and detention in Article 22. The Right against Exploitation is Articles 23 and 24: prohibition of traffic in human beings, begar and other similar forms of forced labour, and prohibition of the employment of children below fourteen in factories, mines and other hazardous work. The Right to Freedom of Religion is Articles 25 to 28, covering freedom of conscience and profession, the management of religious affairs, freedom from taxes for the promotion of a particular religion, and restrictions on religious instruction in State-funded institutions. Cultural and Educational Rights are Articles 29 and 30, protecting the conservation of distinct language, script and culture and the right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions. The Right to Constitutional Remedies is Article 32, which Dr Ambedkar called the heart and soul of the Constitution and under which the Supreme Court may issue the writs of habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, certiorari and quo warranto. The right to property was originally a Fundamental Right in Article 19(1)(f) and Article 31 and was made a constitutional right in Article 300A by the Forty-fourth Amendment Act of 1978.

MPSC asks Part III more often than any other portion of the polity syllabus, and the commonest form of the question is exactly this one: a named right in the stem and four article headings in the options, only one of which belongs to it. The question is therefore about the map of Part III rather than about the meaning of any single article, and it is answered instantly by a candidate who has fixed the six clusters with their article numbers and can place any heading in its cluster. A candidate who has read about each right separately but has never learnt the boundaries between them will find several options broadly plausible, because exploitation, inequality and minority protection all sound like related public goods. The remedy is a small table learnt once — six clusters, their article ranges, and the heading of each article within them. It is worth reading the stem carefully as well: this one asks which statement is correct 'with respect to' a named right, so an option can be perfectly true as a statement of law and still be the wrong answer, because it belongs to a different right. That is the Commission's favourite construction in polity, and it defeats candidates who scan the options for something false.

• The Right against Exploitation consists of Articles 23 and 24 of the Constitution: Article 23 prohibits traffic in human beings, begar and other similar forms of forced labour, and Article 24 prohibits the employment of children below fourteen years in factories, mines and other hazardous work.
• Article 23(2) permits the State to impose compulsory service for public purposes, provided it makes no discrimination on grounds only of religion, race, caste or class.
• The rights under Articles 23 and 24 are available against private persons as well as against the State, and are available to citizens and non-citizens alike; the Supreme Court has read payment below the statutory minimum wage as a form of forced labour.
• Article 27 forbids compelling any person to pay taxes appropriated for the promotion or maintenance of any particular religion, and belongs to the Right to Freedom of Religion in Articles 25 to 28.
• Article 29 is headed 'Protection of interests of minorities' and Article 30 gives minorities the right to establish and administer educational institutions; both belong to the Cultural and Educational Rights, while equality before law is Article 14 in the Right to Equality.

• Choosing an option that states the law correctly but belongs to a different Fundamental Right, when the stem has named one particular right and is asking only what falls within it
• Assuming the Right against Exploitation covers economic inequality at large, when the Constitution confines it to trafficking, forced labour and hazardous child employment in Articles 23 and 24
• Forgetting that Article 29, despite its heading about minorities, protects any section of citizens with a distinct language, script or culture
• Mixing up Article 27, which bars taxes for the promotion of a particular religion, with Article 28, which restricts religious instruction in State-funded educational institutions

Fundamental Rights come up in MPSC papers as article-to-subject matching, as questions on which right a named provision belongs to, as statement lists about the scope of a single article, and as case-law questions on the leading judgments. The Commission particularly likes Articles 21, 23 and 32, and it likes the construction used here, in which every option is a genuine constitutional provision and only one of them sits inside the right the stem names. Expect also questions on which rights are available to non-citizens, on the suspension of rights during an emergency under Articles 358 and 359, and on the writs. The efficient preparation is to write out Part III once by hand — every article number with its heading — and to attach to each of the more heavily examined articles a single line on the statute or the judgment that gives it practical effect.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following Articles of the Constitution together constitute the Right against Exploitation ?

  • (a)Articles 19 and 20
  • (b)Articles 23 and 24
  • (c)Articles 25 and 26
  • (d)Articles 29 and 30

  Answer(b) Articles 23 and 24 — Article 23 prohibits traffic in human beings, begar and other similar forms of forced labour and makes contravention an offence, while Article 24 prohibits the employment of any child below the age of fourteen in a factory, a mine or any other hazardous occupation. Articles 19 and 20 belong to the Right to Freedom, Articles 25 and 26 to the Right to Freedom of Religion, and Articles 29 and 30 to the Cultural and Educational Rights. Both articles of this cluster are enforceable against private persons as well as against the State.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under Article 23(2) of the Constitution, the State may impose compulsory service for public purposes, provided that

  • (a)the service is paid at not less than twice the statutory minimum wage
  • (b)it makes no discrimination on grounds only of religion, race, caste or class
  • (c)the service is imposed only during a Proclamation of Emergency
  • (d)Parliament approves each such imposition by a special majority

  Answer(b) It makes no discrimination on grounds only of religion, race, caste or class — Article 23(2) is the exception to the prohibition of forced labour, and it permits the State to require compulsory service for public purposes, such as military or social service, subject only to that condition against discrimination. The clause imposes no requirement of double wages, is not confined to periods of emergency, and needs no special-majority approval by Parliament; the safeguard the Constitution chose here is equality in the imposition rather than a procedural hurdle.