Which of the following are envisaged by the Right against Exploitation in the Constitution of India ? 1. Abolition of untouchability 2. Prohibition of human trafficking and forced labour 3. Prohibition of employment of children in factories and mines 4. Protection of interests of minorities Select the correct answer from the codes given below :
- (a)2 and 3
- (b)3 and 4
- (c)1 and 2
- (d)1 and 4
Correct — A, 2 and 3. The Right against Exploitation is a two-Article right: Articles 23 and 24 of Part III, and nothing else. Statement 2 is Article 23, which prohibits traffic in human beings, begar and other similar forms of forced labour, and makes any contravention an offence punishable in accordance with law; note that Article 23(2) carves out one exception, allowing the State to impose compulsory service for public purposes provided it makes no discrimination on grounds only of religion, race, caste or class. Statement 3 is Article 24, which forbids the employment of any child below the age of fourteen years in any factory or mine or in any other hazardous employment. Together they are the whole of the Right against Exploitation, so 2 and 3 is the complete and exclusive answer — option (a), the marked answer. The two statements the question wants you to reject belong to other heads of Part III. Statement 1, abolition of untouchability, is Article 17, which sits inside the Right to Equality (Articles 14 to 18) — untouchability is treated by the Constitution as a form of discrimination, not of exploitation, and the Supreme Court's own reading has always placed it there. Statement 4, protection of the interests of minorities, is Articles 29 and 30 — Article 29 protects the right of any section of citizens with a distinct language, script or culture to conserve it, and Article 30 gives all minorities, religious or linguistic, the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice — and those two form the separate head called Cultural and Educational Rights. Both are genuine Fundamental Rights, which is what makes them effective distractors; the question is not asking whether they are Fundamental Rights but whether they sit under this particular heading.
- (b)3 and 4 — Half right. Statement 3 does belong to the Right against Exploitation — Article 24 bars children below fourteen from factories, mines and other hazardous employment. But statement 4, protection of the interests of minorities, is the Cultural and Educational Rights head, Articles 29 and 30, and has nothing to do with exploitation. Anyone choosing this has correctly spotted the child-labour provision and then failed to place the minorities provision.
- (c)1 and 2 — Half right in the other direction, and the most attractive wrong option. Statement 2 is squarely Article 23. But statement 1, abolition of untouchability, is Article 17, which falls under the Right to Equality (Articles 14 to 18), not the Right against Exploitation. The confusion is understandable — untouchability was in practice bound up with forced and degrading labour — but the Constitution classifies it as a form of discrimination and places it with equality. UPSC asked exactly this in 2020 and the answer there was Right to Equality.
- (d)1 and 4 — Both statements are misplaced. Statement 1, abolition of untouchability, is Article 17 under the Right to Equality; statement 4, protection of the interests of minorities, is Articles 29 and 30 under Cultural and Educational Rights. Neither falls under Articles 23 and 24, so this option contains none of what the question asks for.
Part III of the Constitution groups the Fundamental Rights under six headings, and a large family of prelims questions does nothing more than test whether you can put a provision under the right heading. The six are: Right to Equality (Articles 14-18), Right to Freedom (19-22), Right against Exploitation (23-24), Right to Freedom of Religion (25-28), Cultural and Educational Rights (29-30), and Right to Constitutional Remedies (32). A seventh, the Right to Property under Article 31, was removed from Part III by the 44th Amendment Act, 1978 and now survives as an ordinary constitutional right under Article 300A. Every statement in this question belongs to one of those heads — the examiner has simply pulled three from other heads and asked you to sort them.
Two features make the Right against Exploitation distinctive and are worth carrying into the exam hall. First, it is the shortest head in Part III, just two Articles, so a question that offers you three or four provisions is offering you at least one or two impostors by construction. Second, Articles 23 and 24 are among the handful of Fundamental Rights enforceable not only against the State but against private individuals — an employer or a trafficker, not just a government — which is why they carry an express penal element ('shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law'). The Supreme Court gave Article 23 a broad reading in People's Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India (1982), the Asiad Workers case, holding that paying a worker less than the statutory minimum wage amounts to 'forced labour' because economic compulsion is compulsion. The reasoning route for this question is therefore mechanical: recall that the head is 23 plus 24 only, place statement 2 at 23 and statement 3 at 24, and then satisfy yourself that untouchability sits at 17 and minorities at 29-30, which are numbers outside the range.
- Article 23 — prohibits traffic in human beings, begar and other similar forms of forced labour, and makes contravention an offence punishable by law. Article 23(2) permits the State to impose compulsory service for public purposes, so long as it discriminates on no ground only of religion, race, caste or class.
- Article 24 — prohibits the employment of any child below the age of fourteen years in any factory or mine or in any other hazardous employment. Fourteen is the constitutional threshold, and it matches Article 21A (inserted by the 86th Amendment Act, 2002), which makes education free and compulsory for children aged six to fourteen.
- Article 17 — 'Untouchability' is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden; enforcement of any disability arising out of it is an offence punishable in accordance with law. It falls under the Right to Equality, Articles 14 to 18, and is given effect by the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 and the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
- Articles 29 and 30 — the Cultural and Educational Rights. Article 29 lets any section of citizens with a distinct language, script or culture conserve it; Article 30 gives all minorities, whether based on religion or language, the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. Neither Article defines the word 'minority'.
- Statutes that give the Right against Exploitation teeth: the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956; the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976; and the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, whose 2016 amendment bars all employment of children below fourteen (barring family enterprises and the entertainment industry) and bars adolescents aged fourteen to eighteen from hazardous occupations.
The Right against Exploitation is exactly two Articles, 23 and 24. Only statements 2 and 3 fall inside it, giving option (a) — the marked answer. The other two statements are real Fundamental Rights filed under different heads, which is what makes them work as distractors.
- Filing untouchability under 'exploitation' because it feels like exploitation. The Constitution treats it as discrimination and places Article 17 under the Right to Equality.
- Assuming any provision that protects a vulnerable group belongs to the Right against Exploitation. Minority rights (Arts 29-30) protect a vulnerable group but form a separate head.
- Mixing up Article 23 with Article 47. Prohibition of traffic in human beings and forced labour is a Fundamental Right under Article 23; prohibition of intoxicating drinks is a Directive Principle under Article 47 — UPSC has set precisely that confusion as a question.
- Getting the age wrong. Article 24 says below fourteen years, and the same fourteen appears in Article 21A; eighteen appears only in the hazardous-occupation rule of the 2016 amendment to the Child Labour Act, not in the Constitution.
This exact stem — 'which of the following are envisaged by the Right against Exploitation' — has now been set by both UPSC (2017) and UPPSC (2024) with almost the same four statements, so it is one of the most reliably repeated items in polity. The general form is 'place this provision under its Fundamental Right head', asked as a statement set by UPPSC and as either a single-choice or a match by UPSC.
Which of the following are envisaged by the Right against Exploitation in the Constitution of India? 1. Prohibition of traffic in human beings and forced labour 2. Abolition of untouchability 3. Protection of the interests of minorities 4. Prohibition of employment of children in factories and mines Select the correct answer using the code given below:
- (a) 1, 2 and 4 only
- (b) 2, 3 and 4 only
- (c) 1 and 4 only
- (d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
Answer(c) 1 and 4 only
The same question, seven years earlier, with the same four statements shuffled — trafficking and forced labour plus child employment in, untouchability and minority interests out. UPPSC has effectively reprinted a UPSC item, which is the strongest possible argument for working through UPSC prelims polity before a UPPSC attempt.
Which one of the following categories of Fundamental Rights incorporates protection against untouchability as a form of discrimination?
- (a) Right against Exploitation
- (b) Right to Freedom
- (c) Right to Constitutional Remedies
- (d) Right to Equality
Answer(d) Right to Equality
Settles statement 1 directly. Untouchability is placed by the Constitution under the Right to Equality, not the Right against Exploitation, which is why option (c) here is wrong.
Which of the following is/are included in the Directive Principles of State Policy? 1. Prohibition of traffic in human beings and forced labour 2. Prohibition of consumption except for medicinal purposes of intoxicating drinks and of other drugs which are injurious to health Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer(b) 2 only
The other way of testing Article 23 — by asking whether prohibition of traffic in human beings and forced labour is a Directive Principle. It is not; it is a Fundamental Right, and knowing that is the same piece of knowledge statement 2 rewards here.
Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R). Assertion (A) : Article 30 of the Constitution of India does not define the term 'minorities'. Reason (R) : The Constitution recognises only linguistic and religious minorities. Select the correct answer from the codes given below : Codes :
- (a) Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A)
- (b) Both (A) and (R) are true but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A)
- (c) (A) is true, but (R) is false
- (d) (A) is false, but (R) is true
Answer(b) Both (A) and (R) are true but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A)
Statement 4 of this question, tested from the inside. Protection of minority interests lives in Article 30 under Cultural and Educational Rights — a different head of Part III altogether, which is why it cannot be counted here.
Which of the following is not a part of the Article 20 of the Constitution of India?
- (a) Prohibition Against Torture
- (b) Prohibition against Self Incrimination
- (c) Ex-post Facto Law
- (d) Double Jeopardy Clause
Answer(a) Prohibition Against Torture
The same skill on a different Article — deciding whether a named protection is or is not part of a particular Fundamental Right. There the impostor was 'prohibition against torture' inside Article 20; here it is untouchability and minority rights inside Articles 23-24.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The prohibition of employment of children below the age of fourteen years in factories and mines is contained in which Article of the Constitution of India?
- (a)Article 21A
- (b)Article 23
- (c)Article 24
- (d)Article 39(e)
Answer(c) Article 24 — it bars employment of any child below fourteen in a factory, mine or other hazardous employment. Article 23 covers trafficking and forced labour, Article 21A guarantees free and compulsory education for ages six to fourteen, and Article 39(e) is a Directive Principle on not abusing the health of workers and children.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Consider the following statements regarding Article 23 of the Constitution of India: 1. It prohibits traffic in human beings, begar and other similar forms of forced labour. 2. It permits the State to impose compulsory service for public purposes, provided no discrimination is made on grounds only of religion, race, caste or class. 3. It is enforceable only against the State and not against private individuals. Which of the statements given above are correct?
- (a)1 and 2 only
- (b)1 and 3 only
- (c)2 and 3 only
- (d)1, 2 and 3
Answer(a) 1 and 2 only — statements 1 and 2 reproduce Article 23(1) and 23(2). Statement 3 is false: Article 23, like Article 24, is one of the Fundamental Rights available against private persons as well as the State, which is why it makes contravention an offence punishable by law.