Important Social Laws of India: Acts, Articles and PYQs

Social legislation is the part of Indian law that protects people whom the market and the family have historically treated unequally: women, children, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, persons with disabilities, bonded labourers and the very poor. These statutes are not charity. They give statutory teeth to the Constitution's own promises, and examiners treat them as a fixed, high-yield block of Polity because every one of them has a year, a nodal ministry, a definition and a penalty that can be asked in a single line.

The constitutional basis of social legislation

Article 14 guarantees equality before law, and Article 15(3) expressly allows the State to make special provisions for women and children, which is why a law that benefits only women is not discrimination. Article 15(4) and Article 16(4) permit special provision and reservation for socially and educationally backward classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Article 17 abolishes untouchability. Article 21A, inserted by the Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2002, makes free and compulsory education for children of six to fourteen years a fundamental right. Article 23 forbids traffic in human beings and forced labour, and Article 24 forbids the employment of children below fourteen in factories, mines and other hazardous work. Among the Directive Principles, Article 39(e) and 39(f) protect the health of workers and of children, Article 42 asks for just conditions of work and maternity relief, Article 45 asks for early childhood care, Article 46 asks the State to promote the interests of the weaker sections, and Article 47 makes raising the level of nutrition a duty of the State. Each major social Act below gives effect to one of these articles, and that pairing is the single most profitable thing to memorise.

Laws for the protection of women

The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 prohibits both the giving and the taking of dowry and defines dowry as any property or valuable security demanded in connection with marriage. The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987 punishes the glorification of sati. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 is a civil law: it recognises physical, sexual, verbal, emotional and economic abuse, gives an aggrieved woman the right to reside in the shared household, and creates the office of the Protection Officer and the remedies of protection, residence, monetary and custody orders. The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, the POSH Act, converts the Supreme Court's Vishaka guidelines of 1997 into statute; an Internal Committee is compulsory at every workplace with ten or more employees, a Local Committee sits at the district level, and the presiding officer of the Internal Committee must be a senior woman employee. The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 bans sex selection and the disclosure of the sex of a foetus. The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, as amended in 2017, raised paid maternity leave from twelve to twenty-six weeks for the first two children and made a creche compulsory where fifty or more employees work. The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 replaced the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, known as the Sarda Act, and keeps the legal age of marriage at eighteen for women and twenty-one for men.

Laws for the protection of children

Laws for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other weaker sections

The Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, first enacted as the Untouchability (Offences) Act and renamed in 1976, punishes the practice of untouchability in any form. The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 lists specific atrocities, provides Special Courts and Special Public Prosecutors, and bars anticipatory bail for the offences it defines. The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 abolishes bonded labour and discharges the bonded labourer of his debt, giving effect to Article 23. The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 vests individual and community forest rights, with the Gram Sabha as the authority that begins the claim. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 replaced the 1995 Act, expanded the list of recognised disabilities to twenty-one, reserved four per cent of government posts for persons with benchmark disabilities and five per cent of seats in government-aided higher education.

Welfare laws of general application

The National Food Security Act, 2013 gives subsidised grain to up to seventy-five per cent of the rural and fifty per cent of the urban population, five kilograms per person a month for priority households and thirty-five kilograms a household under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana, and it requires that the eldest woman of eighteen years or above be treated as the head of the household for the ration card. The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 makes maintenance of parents a legal duty enforceable before a Maintenance Tribunal. The Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 recognised advance directives and ended the treatment of attempted suicide as a crime. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 forbids discrimination in education, employment and health care. The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019 made the pronouncement of talaq-e-biddat void and punishable.

Who enforces these laws

Constitutional and statutory bodies watch over the field: the National Commission for Scheduled Castes under Article 338, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes under Article 338A, the National Commission for Backward Classes under Article 338B, and the statutory National Commission for Women and National Commission for Protection of Child Rights. District Magistrates, Protection Officers, Juvenile Justice Boards, Child Welfare Committees and Special Courts do the day-to-day work.