Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R).
Assertion (A) : Consumers can bargain below Maximum Retail Price (MRP).
Reason (R) : MRP is a price a sell

Question

Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R).
Assertion (A) : Consumers can bargain below Maximum Retail Price (MRP).
Reason (R) : MRP is a price a seller must charge from the buyer.
Select the correct answer from the code given below :
Code :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — B, (A) is true, but (R) is false. Before the substance, one warning about this booklet: its assertion-reason code is rotated throughout and NO letter keeps its usual meaning. All 20 assertion-reason items in this paper run (a) both true / R does NOT explain A, (b) A true / R false, (c) A false / R true, (d) both true / R IS the explanation — that is the standard code shifted one place, with the familiar (a) meaning pushed all the way to (d). What a candidate has drilled as (b) is printed here at (a), and what they have drilled as (c) is printed here at (b). Read the code off the page every time. Now the economics. The Assertion is true. MRP stands for Maximum Retail Price, and the word that does all the work is 'maximum'. It is the manufacturer-declared ceiling printed on a packaged commodity, inclusive of all taxes, and it fixes the highest price at which that pack may lawfully be sold anywhere in India. Nothing in it obliges the retailer to charge that much. Retailers may and constantly do sell below it — festival discounts, e-commerce price wars, a chemist's standing 10 per cent off, or simply a customer who haggles at the counter. So a consumer can indeed bargain below the MRP. The Reason is false, and it is false in a precise way: it converts a ceiling into a mandate. MRP is not a price 'a seller must charge from the buyer'; it is the price a seller must not exceed. That asymmetry is the whole point of the regime — charging above the printed MRP is an offence under India's packaged-commodity law, while charging below it is ordinary commerce. India's MRP also differs from the 'recommended retail price' used in many other countries, where the manufacturer's figure is only a suggestion with no legal force; India's is legally enforceable, but enforceable only as an upper limit. Assertion true, Reason false, which on this paper as on any other is option (b).

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This requires the Reason to be true, and it is not. 'MRP is a price a seller must charge from the buyer' describes a fixed or administered price — the kind of thing the Fair and Remunerative Price for sugarcane or a statutory minimum price is — not a maximum. If MRP really were a price the seller must charge, the Assertion would be impossible: you cannot bargain below a mandatory price. The two statements as written cannot both be true, which by itself rules this option out. Note also the letter. On a standard UPSC paper this meaning — both true, R not the explanation — is printed at (b); this booklet moves it to (a). A candidate reciting the remembered layout can land on it for entirely the wrong reason.  (c) This is the exact inversion of the truth and it is what a candidate marks who reads 'maximum retail price' as 'the retail price'. Both halves fail. The Assertion is not false — discounting below MRP is legal and universal, which is why 'X per cent off MRP' is the standard form of an Indian retail advertisement. And the Reason is not true — no law compels a seller to extract the printed figure; the law only forbids exceeding it. Choosing this option usually means the candidate has assumed that a legally printed price must be a legally compulsory price.  (d) Fails at the same first hurdle as (a): the Reason is false, so no explanatory relationship can be built on it. It is also self-defeating on its own terms. If the Reason were true and MRP were a price the seller must charge, it would not explain the Assertion, it would contradict it — a compulsory price is exactly what you cannot bargain below. Watch the letter here too: in this booklet (d) is the 'both true and R IS the explanation' slot, the meaning a candidate would normally look for at (a), so it attracts candidates twice over.

Concept: MRP is India's distinctive answer to retail overcharging. Every pre-packaged commodity sold in the country must carry a declared Maximum Retail Price, inclusive of all taxes, and no seller anywhere — a village kirana, an airport kiosk, a hill-station tea stall — may charge more than that figure. The declaration is the manufacturer's, and it is a ceiling only. Below it the market is free: the retailer's own margin, competition, festival demand and the customer's willingness to haggle all decide what is actually paid. This makes MRP quite different from a fixed or administered price, where the state sets the number the transaction must occur at, and different again from a minimum support or statutory minimum price, which is a floor protecting a seller rather than a ceiling protecting a buyer.

State PCS 2025 Q144 — Economy PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q144 — Economy PYQ with Answer