Indian Polity GK Questions with Answers – Page 28

That Act was passed in 2002 but was never notified, so it never came into force; the RTI Act, 2005 replaced it with a stronger scheme that added time limits, penalties and independent Information Commissions, and Section 31 of the new Act repealed it.

The Act provides two appeals. Under Section 19(1) the first appeal is filed within thirty days of the reply or of the expiry of the time limit, and it goes to an officer senior in rank to the Public Information Officer within the same public authority, the First Appellate Authority.

Section 22 states that the provisions of the RTI Act have effect notwithstanding anything inconsistent in the Official Secrets Act, 1923, in any other law in force or in any instrument having effect by virtue of any other law.

Section 20(1) provides that where an Information Commission finds that a Public Information Officer has refused an application without reasonable cause, has not furnished information within the time specified, has given incorrect or misleading information or has destroyed information, it may impose a penalty of two hundred and fifty rupees…

Section 7(1) of the RTI Act lays down two limits. The ordinary limit is thirty days from the receipt of the application, but where the information sought concerns the life or liberty of a person the Public Information Officer must supply it within forty-eight hours of the request.

The RTI Act received the assent of the President on 15 June 2005, and Section 1(3) provided that the remaining provisions would come into force on the one hundred and twentieth day of its enactment.

Decided in 1981, it held that laws placed in the Ninth Schedule before 24 April 1973, the day the Kesavananda Bharati judgment was delivered, stay protected, while those added afterwards can be examined for damage to the basic structure, a position confirmed in I.R.

The nine-judge bench held that the proclamation of President's rule in a state is open to judicial review, that the material on which it rests must be relevant, and that the majority of a government must be tested on the floor of the legislative assembly rather than assessed in the…

In Vishaka v State of Rajasthan the court, acting because there was no statute on the subject, framed binding guidelines for employers, including complaints committees, and these guidelines governed workplaces until Parliament enacted a law on the prevention, prohibition and redressal of such harassment in 2013.

Puttaswamy v Union of India. A bench of nine judges held unanimously in 2017 that the right to privacy is intrinsic to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and to the freedoms guaranteed by Part III, and it overruled the older view taken in the M.P.

Decided in 1992 by a nine-judge bench, it upheld reservation in central services for other backward classes, fixed an ordinary ceiling of fifty per cent on total reservation and directed that the better off among the backward classes, the creamy layer, be kept out.

In the case known as the Fourth Judges Case the court held by four to one that the commission would let the executive influence the appointment of judges, that the independence of the judiciary is part of the basic structure, and that the collegium therefore revived.

That amendment had added clauses to Article 368 declaring that an amendment could not be questioned in any court and that there was no limit on the amending power; the court held those clauses void because judicial review and the balance between fundamental rights and directive principles are part of…

The case arose from the impounding of a passport, and the court held that the procedure by which the state takes away life or personal liberty must be just, fair and reasonable, which read the substance of due process into Article 21 and replaced the narrow view taken in A.K.

Golaknath v State of Punjab. In 1967 an eleven-judge bench held by six votes to five that an amendment of the Constitution is law for the purposes of Article 13, so Parliament could not abridge fundamental rights, and it softened the blow by applying the doctrine of prospective overruling to…

The judgment was delivered on 24 April 1973 by a bench of thirteen judges, the largest ever assembled in the Supreme Court, and the majority of seven to six held that Parliament may amend any provision of the Constitution but cannot damage or destroy its basic structure.

Article 15(2) says no citizen can be denied access to, or the use of, wells, tanks, bathing ghats, roads and places of public resort maintained wholly or partly out of State funds, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.

Free legal aid is a Directive Principle under Article 39A, and the Supreme Court has made it the duty of the police to inform the nearest Legal Aid Committee as soon as a person is arrested.

The North Eastern Council was created under the North Eastern Council Act, 1971 and began work in 1972 at Shillong.

Liberal democracy rests on constitutional, rule-bound government and on guaranteed civil liberties; it limits political power rather than making it unlimited.