IAS Mains Law Papers 1991

IAS Prelims & Mains GS and Optional Lectures, Model Answers, and Notes at doorsteptutor.com.

IAS Mains Law Science 1991

Paper I

Section A

  1. Answer any three of the following (each answer should be in about 200 words) :
    1. Have the Emergency Provisions in effect maintained a unitary constitution for India? Give your assessment.
    2. Constitution of India accepts secularism but there is no rigid separation between state and freedom of religion given-to the individual. Critically examine the constitutional provisions.
    3. The Supremacy of Constitution in Indian legal system in reality means primacy of judiciary over other organs of Government Discuss.
    4. Delegation of legislative powers becomes unconstitutional when there is excessive delegation. Explain the statement and examine the limits of valid delegation of legislative powers in India.
  2. Answer the following questions
    1. Right to equality is available only against state actions and arbitrariness but since the right to equality has very wide application, there has been steady enlargement of the scope of state for the benefit of people. Discuss
    2. X is suffering from kidney failure and doctors advise that by frequent dialysis he can remain alive for some years. Dialysis of blood is a very costly treatment, X has some property but be wants this property to be used by his wife and children. Can X refuse this treatment? Discuss the constitutionality of the rights to life and to die.
  3. Answer the following questions
    1. Are the principles of natural justice embodied rules of the Constitution of India having the characteristics of due process of law and possessing the importance of fundamental rights? Discuss how the Supreme Court has answered this question and how it has in Tulsi Ram Patel Case defined the nature and scope of natural justice.
    2. Is the power of amendment implicit in the Constitution of India and is it wide enough to replace the present constitution by a new one without the need of revolution or referudum?
    • Discuss by making reference to Keshwanand Bharti Case doctrines.
  4. Examine the constitutionality of any two of the following:
    1. A highly controversial bill which has attracted public debate is under consideration in the Legislative Assembly of a State and it is to be passed on a particular day. A minister who is actively supporting the bill is stopped on the road while proceeding to attend the meeting of the Legislative Assembly. A young man who disapproves the bill scolds the minister for the bill and throws a shoe on him. Can the Legislative Assembly punish the young man for the con-tempt of the House?
    2. A new colony is developed near in Jam temple which is more than 15 km away from a city and there is no temple for worship in the Colony. The people make a demand for instralling Shivaling in this Jam temple for worship. This demand is rejected by management of the temple. The people file a writ against the temple under Article 226 for the protection of their freedom of religion under Article 25 of the Constitution. Decide.
    3. A public officer B is charged for corruption and after a departmental inquiry he is desmissed from service. Subsequently he is prosecuted under criminal law for taking bribery and other offences for which he was dismissed from service. Is this prosecution before criminal court a violation of his constitutional rights?

Section B

  1. Answer any three of the following (each answer should be in about 200 words) :
    1. The principle of self-determination continues to be the dominant part of the concept of human rights in International Law but it cannot eclipse sovereign identity of a state. Discuss with reference to contemporary international situations.
    2. Present thinking is that whatever be the nature of war it is not a licence to destroy natural resources necessary for mankind or for ecological balance. Elucidate the developments in International Law on this aspect
    3. Those who commit offences of hi-jacking and terrorism must always be punished. Critically examine how far International Conventions achieve this principle in practice.
    4. The theory of territoriality for application of criminal law is not an absolute principle of
    • International Law and this by no means coincides with territorial sovereignty. Explain with help of practices of states.
  2. Answer the following questions
    1. Examine the concept of sovereign state in International Law. What duties are imposed on a state in respect of treatment of allesns?
    2. The states have complete legal jurisdiction in airspace over their territory but airspace is limited. Explain the position.
  3. Answer the following questions
    1. Examine the developments in International Law on the status and protection of refugees. How is it that Vietnamese refugees are being forcibly repatriated from Hong Kong against their wishes? Explain if violation of human rights is involved.
    2. Write a critical note on the principle of the United Nations Organisation that it shall not intervene in maters which are essentially within domestic jurisdiction of any state
  4. Write short notes on any three of the following:
    1. Territorial waters and land-locked states
    2. Succession of contractual obligations of extinct stare
    3. Liabilities of individual for war crimes
    4. Enforcement actions by Security Council against aggression by a state.
  • Time Allowed: 3 hours Maximum Marks: 300
    • Candidates should attempt Questions I and 5 which are compulsory, and any three of the remaining questions selecting at least one question from each Section.

Paper II

Section A

  1. Answer any three of the following (each answer should be in about 200 words) :
    1. Explain the common law doctrine of contributory negligence and the illogicality involved in it that paved the way for its modification.
    2. The basic principle for the measure of damages in tort as well as in contract is that there should be restitution in integrum. Explain and comment.
    3. While Section 55 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) empowers the appropriate Government to commute a sentence of imprisonment for life to fourteen years, Section 57 states that in calculating the fractions of sentence of imprisonment, imprisonment for life shall-be reckoned as equivalent to twenty years. What is the actual duration of a sentence imprisonment for life and how do you explain the above two seemingly contradictory statements?
    4. How do you differentiate preparation for and attempt at commission of a crime? To be guilty of an attempt, it is not necessary that circumstances should be such as would facilitate the completion of the crime. Comment. What is the punishment prescribed for a criminal attempt?
  2. Answer the following questions
    1. What are the conditions of application of the maxim resipsa loquitor? How does it affect the burden of proof in cases of negligence?
    2. The plaintiff engaged the defendants, a firm of interior decorators, to do some work in his house. The firm deputed one of its servants to do the work. The plaintiff instructed the worker that if he should ever go out he should close shut the front door and go. The worker went out without securely closing the front door to fetch some materials. Before he returned some thieves entered the house and stole some very valuable jewels. Can the plaintiff recover the value of the jewels from the defendants?
  3. Answer the following questions
    1. Explain the distinction between Criminal Misappropriation and Criminal Breach of Trust.
    2. A letter is received to the address of one A Raman. A person bearing the same name and working in the same office as the former receives it. On opening it, he finds in it a dividend warrant, to which he knows he has no clam at all and has reason to believe that the former
    • Raman could have. He however takes it and deposits it in his own bank account. What offence has lie committed? Assuming that the former Raman has himself received the latter but gave to the latter to be deposited in the formers bank account, what is the offence committed by the latter thereby?
  4. Answer the following questions
    1. Examine the following statements:
      1. Instigation of minor to commit suicide amounts to abetment of murder.
      2. Killing another in excessive self-defence but without premeditation is not murder.
    2. A and B were married in 1988. A had been pestering B all along to bring from her parents money for him to buy a scooter and even subjecting her to cruelty. One day he gave her a severe thrashing on this account and left the house. When he returned home two hours later, he found her dead, having consumed cyanide poison. He reported the death to the police as a case of suicide due to some personal ailment. The police prosecuted him for dowry death, and in the alternative for abetment of suicide. At the trial he did not produce any evidence of ailment from which she suffered. For what offence can he be held guilty?

Section B

  1. Answer any three of the following (each answer should be in about 200 words) :
    1. Explain the principle of non est factum, and comment on its rationality when applied in reference to a document executed by a well-educated person.
    2. Examine the value of stipulations contained in a contract which specify the images or penalties to be paid by the party in breach to the other party.
    3. A stipulation may be a condition though called a warranty in the contra. Explain bringing out the distinction between conditions and stipulations. When may a condition in contract of sale of good have to be treated as a warranty?
    4. In what way a holder of a negotiable instrument stands in a less advantageous position than a holder in due course?
    • Comment on: A holder who derives title from a holder in due course has the same rights as a holder in due course.
  2. Answer the following questions
    1. Explain the doctrine of frustration of contracts. Examine the statement Cases of frustration of contracts are not simply cases of initial or supervening physical or legal impossibility of performance of contracts.
    2. X agreed with Y to supply twenty transformers, which were to be imported from a foreign country, at a price stated to be firm and not subject to escalation. X imported ten transformers and there after stopped importing as the prices had gone up three-fold due to conditions of war. V sued X for specific performance of the contract limiting the chain to the ten transformers available with X, and claimed damages with respect to the remaining ten. X has taken the position that the whole contract has become frustrated ans so the suit is not maintainable. Does V succeed?
  3. Answer the following questions
    1. In a sale of goods risk usually passes with the property, but may pass independently of it. Explain, when property and risk pass.
    2. P agreed to sell 100 bales of cotton from W, to be delivered at Delhi. P sent the goods by railway, the railway receipt to a bank at Delhi with an instruction that it should be delivered to W on his paying the invoiced amount. W paid the amount and got the receipt, but then learnt that a few days earlier the bales were destroyed by fire.
    • Can W recover the amount he has paid?
  4. Answer the following questions
    1. What are the essential elements of a partnership? If two corporations agree that they shall invest equally and start a joint venture one year hence, can you say that there is a subsisting partnership?
    2. What are the types of complaints that may be preferred under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986? Who are competent to bring a complaint before a District Forum? What are the remedies available to a party aggrieved by a decision of a District Forum?
    3. Who are the person that can invoke the protection afforded by the Protection of Civil Rights

Act, 1955? A person belonging to a scheduled tribe, professing the religion of Christianity, is refused admission to a Hindu temple. Can be invoke the protection under the Act?