Indian Polity GK Questions with Answers – Page 15

The Court also warned in the same judgment that a PIL must not be used to settle a personal score, and it dismissed the petition on that ground.

Epistolary jurisdiction is the practice by which the Supreme Court, and later the High Courts, treated a simple letter or postcard describing a violation of rights as a formal writ petition, dispensing with the usual requirements of form, court fee and a lawyer.

It says that the Supreme Court in the exercise of its jurisdiction may pass such decree or make such order as is necessary for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it, and that such a decree is enforceable throughout India.

The petition followed the gang rape of a social worker in rural Rajasthan who had tried to stop a child marriage.

The phrase travelled into Indian constitutional writing and now describes a court that reads rights expansively, fills a legislative vacuum and supervises the executive until a constitutional duty is discharged.

Often called the Mini Constitution because of the number of provisions it touched, it added several Directive Principles, among them Article 39A on equal justice and free legal aid, Article 43A on worker participation in management and Article 48A on the protection of the environment, forests and wildlife.

It is a Directive Principle that requires the State to secure a legal system which promotes justice on the basis of equal opportunity, and in particular to provide free legal aid by suitable legislation or schemes so that no citizen is denied the opportunity to secure justice by reason of…

The Supreme Court held that where a legal wrong is caused to a person or a class of persons who cannot approach the court because of poverty, disability or a socially disadvantaged position, any member of the public acting in good faith may move the court on their behalf.

Decided in 1979, it arose from a newspaper report on undertrial prisoners in Bihar who had been in jail awaiting trial for longer than the maximum sentence their alleged offences carried.

Habeas corpus is Latin for you may have the body. A High Court under Article 226, and the Supreme Court under Article 32, issues it to the person or authority holding someone in custody, ordering that the detenu be produced before the court so that the legality of the detention…

Article 105(3) authorises Parliament to define its privileges by law, but Parliament has never passed such a law, so the privileges remain uncodified and are drawn from the Constitution, the rules of the Houses, their precedents and the practice followed before the Forty-fourth Amendment.

Article 105(4) extends the privileges of the House to persons who have the right to speak in and otherwise take part in the proceedings of a House or any of its committees without being members.

Article 122 says that the validity of any proceedings in Parliament shall not be called in question in any court on the ground of an alleged irregularity of procedure, and that an officer or member in whom power over procedure or order is vested is not subject to the jurisdiction…

In 2024 a seven-judge bench held that the immunity in Article 105(2) and Article 194(2) covers only what is essential to the functioning of the House, so a legislator who takes a bribe for a vote or a speech can be prosecuted; the offence is complete when the bribe is…

No such privilege exists. Freedom from arrest covers civil cases only, and a member may be arrested in a criminal matter or under a preventive detention law at any time, including on the floor of the House in exceptional circumstances with the permission of the presiding officer.

The Committee of Privileges of the Lok Sabha has fifteen members, nominated by the Speaker, and it examines questions of privilege referred to it and recommends what action the House should take.

As originally enacted, Article 105(3) said that until Parliament defined the privileges by law they would be those of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.

Article 361A protects a person from civil or criminal liability for publishing a substantially true report of the proceedings of either House of Parliament or of a State Legislature, unless the publication is proved to have been made with malice; the protection does not extend to reports of a secret…

Freedom from arrest in civil cases runs through the continuance of a session and for forty days before the session begins and forty days after it ends.

Article 105 of the Constitution deals with the powers, privileges and immunities of Parliament, its members and its committees.