Rights-Based Laws & Governance Quiz: Indian Polity Practice

Spoilers! These are the Starter quiz’s answers. Easy, Medium, Hard and Mixed rounds show their own answers when you finish.

1. Under the Right to Information Act, 2005, information must ordinarily be provided within:

   • 15 days of receiving the request
   • 30 days of receiving the request
   • 45 days of receiving the request
   • 60 days of receiving the request

   Answer: 30 days of receiving the request. The normal limit is 30 days. If the information concerns a person's life or liberty, it must be given within 48 hours.

2. Which organisations are kept outside the RTI Act by its Section 24?

   • All public sector undertakings and nationalised banks
   • All Union ministries dealing with finance and defence
   • State universities and government-aided colleges
   • Listed intelligence and security bodies, except for information on corruption and human rights violations

   Answer: Listed intelligence and security bodies, except for information on corruption and human rights violations. Section 24 and the Second Schedule exempt specified intelligence and security bodies, but even they must disclose information on corruption and human rights violations.

3. The Right to Education Act, 2009 requires private unaided schools to reserve what share of entry-level seats for children from weaker and disadvantaged groups?

   • 10%
   • 15%
   • 25%
   • 33%

   Answer: 25%. Section 12(1)(c) fixes 25%, with the government reimbursing the cost. The Act gives effect to Article 21A for ages 6 to 14.

4. In which case did a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court declare the right to privacy a Fundamental Right?

   • K. S. Puttaswamy v Union of India, 2017
   • Maneka Gandhi v Union of India, 1978
   • Kharak Singh v State of UP, 1962
   • Navtej Singh Johar v Union of India, 2018

   Answer: K. S. Puttaswamy v Union of India, 2017. Puttaswamy held privacy to be intrinsic to Article 21 and Part III, overruling earlier views in M. P. Sharma and Kharak Singh.

5. The Vishaka guidelines (1997) on sexual harassment at the workplace were later given statutory form by:

   • the POSH Act, 2013
   • the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005
   • the POCSO Act, 2012
   • the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013

   Answer: the POSH Act, 2013. The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 requires an Internal Committee in workplaces with 10 or more employees.

6. How many specified disabilities are recognised by the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016?

   • 7
   • 14
   • 21
   • 19

   Answer: 21. The 2016 Act raised the list from 7 under the 1995 Act to 21 and set 4% reservation in government jobs.

7. In NALSA v Union of India (2014), the Supreme Court:

   • decriminalised consensual same-sex relations
   • held instant triple talaq unconstitutional
   • upheld reservation for economically weaker sections
   • recognised transgender persons as a third gender

   Answer: recognised transgender persons as a third gender. NALSA affirmed the right to self-identified gender. Same-sex relations were decriminalised later in Navtej Singh Johar (2018).

8. Under the Forest Rights Act, 2006, the process of determining individual and community forest rights is initiated by:

   • the District Collector
   • the Gram Sabha
   • the state Forest Department
   • the Union Ministry of Environment

   Answer: the Gram Sabha. The Gram Sabha receives, consolidates and verifies claims before passing them to sub-divisional and district committees.

9. A "social audit" of a government scheme means:

   • an audit of the scheme's accounts by the Comptroller and Auditor General
   • an audit by private chartered accountants hired by the ministry
   • verification of the scheme's implementation by the community and beneficiaries themselves
   • an internal audit by the department that runs the scheme

   Answer: verification of the scheme's implementation by the community and beneficiaries themselves. In a social audit, records are shared and checked in public meetings such as the Gram Sabha, making officials answerable directly to people.

10. A Citizen's Charter is best described as:

    • a Part of the Constitution that lists the duties of citizens
    • a statute passed by Parliament in 1997 on public services
    • a pledge signed by voters before general elections
    • a public document stating an office's service standards, timelines and grievance redress

    Answer: a public document stating an office's service standards, timelines and grievance redress. Charters began in the UK in 1991 and India adopted them from 1997. They are commitments by offices and are mostly not legally enforceable.