Passage Based Questions: Legal Aptitude - 5 | Passage Based Questions for CLAT Preparation PDF Download

Passage - 1

Directions : Read the following questions carefully and choose the right answer.
Actor Payal Rohatgi’s arrest by Rajasthan police and her remand in judicial custody for posting a video containing false and objectionable remarks about freedom fighter Motilal Nehru highlight the discrepancies in the operation of free speech laws in India. Using the power of arrest to silence an instance of defamatory speech is a slippery road. Instead of quarrelling over semantics, it is important to draw clear red lines. Unless there is an imminent threat to public order, allowing arrests for free speech violations is an invitation to curb the rights of citizens.
The bane of free speech in India has been a burgeoning industry of offence takers who are quick to rush to police or courts seeking justice for hurt sentiments. In Rohatgi’s case it was a Youth Congress member, not even Moti-lal’s progeny like the Nehru-Gandhi family that was aggrieved. Instead of a straight forward libel suit she was booked for criminal offences like Section 67 of Information Technology Act for publishing obscene material in electronic form and IPC Section 504(intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace).The recourse to criminal laws to harass ordinary citizens for alleged free speech violations has a long history.
While frontline politicians are never summarily arrested, this luxury is not available to other citizens. Recall how a Bengal Yuva Morcha leader was jailed for memes mocking Mamata Banerjee or a 16 year old Meerut boy was detained at a juvenile home for a post criticising former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee after his death. In 2016 Supreme Court ruled that criminal defamation did not violate constitutional principles. But in practice, state governments with their control over the police and magistrates aren’t helping .A fair and uniform application of laws instead of arbitrariness that characterised Rohatgi’s arrest will help citizens internalise the reasonable restrictions on free speech enshrined in the Constitution.

Directions : Read the following questions carefully and choose the right answer.
Uttar Pradesh MLA Kuldeep Sengar has been convicted of raping a minor girl from Unnao in 2017.That experience would have been horrific enough for the survivor, but her fight for justice in the intervening years inflicted further grave traumas. The special court that convicted Sengar on Monday pointed to some of the ways in which her struggle for justice had to be a struggle against the system meant to give her justice. For example, it found that the CBI investigation “suffered from patriarchal approach”, had a mindset of “brushing the issues of sexual violence against children under the carpet”, and was in fact not “fair” to either the survivor or her family members.
That the safeguards for preventing the “re-victimisation” of rape survivors completely failed, is an experience shared with too many other cases. This is to the core challenge in addressing crimes against women in India, bringing de facto practices in line with de jure law. The investigation should have involved a woman officer, it did not. The survivor should not have been called to the CBI office for recording successive statements, she was. The accused was a four time BJP MLA, she was “under threat, worried....a village girl”. Her safety should have been guaranteed. Instead her father died suspiciously in custody, her aunts in an equally suspicious traffic accident, where she was seriously injured alongside her lawyer. Trials in these cases continue.
The widespread public outrage that erupted after the 2012 Nirbhaya case, did impel a notable strengthening of anti-rape legislation but not a true course correction in the justice system. Failures in registering crimes, safeguarding witnesses, reducing pendency and delivering convictions continue. Meanwhile, as seen in last month’s Hyderabad gangrape and murder of a young veterinary doctor, new horrors such as setting the victim/survivor on fire seem to be “trending”. The encounter killing of the four accused just feeds into a climate of impunity.
True deterrence requires timely legal processes and calibrated punishment. And in cases where the rape accused is politically influential, the state must go the extra mile in delivering a fair probe to the survivor. Doing so will send a powerful message to the public as well as police. As will political parties refraining from fielding candidates charged with crimes against women. During 2009-19 the number of Lok Sabha MPs with declared cases of such crimes actually rose by 850%,to 19 now.