NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 11 –142End of chapter — Questions and Activities

The chapter gives you the precedent for exactly this. The first reported case of a Public Interest Litigation began when a lawyer, Mrs Kapila Hingorani, read in the newspaper that prisoners undergoing trial had been in jail longer than the punishment they would have received even if found guilty. She filed a writ petition to secure the release of all such under-trial prisoners in Bihar, and the Supreme Court ordered their release and issued guidelines that freed almost 40,000 under-trial prisoners across India. So a letter about a wrong you have observed, addressed to the right court, is a real route — that is what PIL was created for.

First decide which court to write to. The chapter is precise about this:

What a good letter must contain — six things, in this order: (1) the court and the judge it is addressed to; (2) who you are; (3) the facts, plainly and without exaggeration, with dates and a place; (4) whose right is affected and why this is a matter of public concern and not a private complaint; (5) what you are asking the court to do; (6) the proof you can offer — photographs, a newspaper report, names of people willing to speak. Keep it short, factual and respectful. Do not name individuals as guilty or claim facts you have not seen.

Sample answer — model letter:

The chapter itself says the judicial system addresses a huge number of cases on a regular basis, and it points to the two directions in which the answer lies: send fewer disputes into the courts, and let the courts move faster on the ones that arrive. As a member of the legislature or the executive I would work on four fronts.

1. Take dispute out of the courtroom wherever the parties agree. This is the chapter’s own remedy — courts increasingly encourage litigants to settle through arbitration, mediation/conciliation, negotiation and Lok Adalats.

• Fund a mediation centre attached to every district court, staffed under The Mediation Act, 2023, so that suitable cases are offered mediation on the very first date rather than after years.
• Hold Lok Adalats on a fixed, publicised calendar — say the second Saturday of each month in every district — so that people can plan for them. They are recognised under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 and can settle cases already pending in the courts.
• Set up the Gram Nyayalayas the Gram Nyayalayas Act, 2008 provides for, in blocks that do not yet have one. Being mobile and village-level, with a simplified procedure and no technicalities, they stop small disputes from becoming long cases.

2. Use digital technology to remove waiting rather than only to record it. The chapter lists the initiatives already taken — e-Filing, hybrid hearings, live streaming of proceedings, translation of judgments into multiple Indian languages, and the National Judicial Data Grid. As executive I would build on them.

• Make e-Filing possible from every common service centre in a village, so a litigant does not travel to file a paper.
• Extend hybrid hearings to routine dates — an adjournment or a small procedural matter should not cost a farmer a day’s wage and a bus fare.
• Use the National Judicial Data Grid as a management tool, not just a display: publish which categories of case are oldest in each district, and post additional judges there. The chapter notes that since 2024–2025 a ‘Virtual Justice Clock’ screen at the Supreme Court’s main gates shows real-time judicial data — that same transparency, district by district, would show exactly where the blockage is.

3. Reduce the flow at its source.

• The government is itself the largest litigant in many kinds of case. As executive I would require every department to have a small committee that examines whether an appeal is really necessary before it is filed, and to settle clear claims of employees and pensioners without going to court at all.
• As legislature, I would review and repeal outdated laws — the chapter records that over 1500 laws enacted during British rule have already been repealed. Fewer, clearer laws mean fewer disputes about what the law means.
• Write new laws in plain language, and publish an authoritative version in the regional languages, so that ordinary transactions do not need a court to interpret them.

4. Strengthen the courts themselves.

• Fill vacancies quickly. A sanctioned post lying empty is a courtroom not sitting.
• Increase court infrastructure — rooms, record-keeping staff and stenographers — since a judge without a functioning registry cannot hear more cases.
• Support the shift the chapter describes in the criminal law: the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 aim at faster justice, use of digital evidence and better protection for victims. As executive I would train police and court staff in handling digital evidence, since a law only works if the people applying it can use it.

Setting up the moot court. You need a judge, one litigant and counsel for each side, and a court clerk to call the case. Each side gets an uninterrupted turn; the judge may ask questions but decides only after both sides have finished. Announce the decision with reasons — in a moot court the reasoning is the whole exercise, not the verdict.

The considerations a judge must take into account — the same four in every case:

1. Procedural justice. Has every person involved had a full opportunity of hearing before the decision is taken? Is the person against whom a complaint is made being treated as innocent till proved guilty? A judge who has decided before hearing has already failed, however good the final order looks.
2. Substantive justice. Is the outcome actually fair, just and reasonable? Does it genuinely put right what went wrong, or does it only close the file?
3. The law and the Constitution. What does the applicable law say, and does the decision sit within the framework of the Constitution and the Fundamental Rights it guarantees — Equality, Liberty, Right to Life, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion?
4. Evidence. What is actually proved, as against what is merely asserted? A judge decides on the record placed before the court.

(i) Anita and Sameer — equal pay for the same work

Anita’s case: she and Sameer hold the same Industrial Training Institute diploma, joined the factory on the same day and do the same job. She is paid less. She has appealed to her employer many times and nothing changed, so she has come to court only after trying the ordinary remedy. She asks the court to order equal pay and to make up the difference she has already lost.

The employer’s case: the employer must be heard too, and the judge must ask what is actually being claimed — for example that the two do different work, or work different shifts, or that the pay difference comes from some rule applied to everyone. If the reason offered is simply that Anita is a woman, that is not a difference in work at all.

What the judge would examine:

What the outcome might be. If Anita proves that the work, the qualification and the date of joining are the same and the employer offers no lawful reason for the difference, the court would be expected to hold the difference unjustified and direct that she be paid the same as Sameer, with the arrears. The Constitution guarantees Equality as a Fundamental Right, and a pay difference resting on nothing but sex cannot stand with it. If, on the other hand, the employer proves the two do genuinely different work, the claim would fail — and that too would be a just outcome, because justice means the decision follows the facts.

(ii) The polluted river

The villagers have more than one route, and the sensible order is from the nearest remedy to the highest.

1. Establish the facts first. Get the water tested and keep the report; keep dated photographs of the discharge point and of the river before and after it; collect the hospital or health-centre records of those who fell ill. A court decides on evidence, so the case is built here.
2. Complain to the authority responsible. Approach the local body and the State Pollution Control Board in writing, and keep a copy with the date. If the ordinary remedy works, no case is needed; if it does not, that written complaint becomes proof that they tried.
3. Go to the tribunal made for this. The chapter’s Fig. 4.7 is exact — the National Green Tribunal decides environmental issues. It is quasi-judicial, established for this category of dispute, and is the natural forum for a claim about effluents discharged into a river.
4. File a writ petition or a PIL. Since the whole village is affected, this is an issue of public concern. A PIL under Article 226 before the High Court fits a violation within the State; a PIL under Article 32 before the Supreme Court fits an issue with all-India ramification. The chapter records that PIL was introduced by the Supreme Court precisely to give meaning to the Right to Life under Article 21, and that in M.C. Mehta v. Union of India the Supreme Court took up environmental issues such as the cleaning of the River Ganga.
5. Appeal if necessary. The chapter notes that the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to hear appeals from specialised tribunals such as the National Green Tribunal, so an unsatisfactory order is not the end of the road.

What the villagers should ask for — not simply that the factory be punished, but that the harm be undone: an order stopping the discharge, a direction to treat the effluent before releasing it, cleaning of the affected stretch, testing of the water at fixed intervals with reports filed in court, medical help for those who fell ill, and compensation for the loss to crops and health.

This essay must be built on facts you have verified, not on recollection — a judge’s reputation rests on their judgments, and getting those wrong makes the essay worthless. So begin with the research, then write.

How to find your subject:

• Open the official website of your State’s High Court — use the table on pages 134–135 to identify which High Court covers your State. Every High Court site carries a list of former Chief Justices and judges, and many carry short profiles.
• Ask your school library for a general knowledge yearbook, a district gazetteer, or a biography section; ask your teacher and, if there is one nearby, the district bar association or the district court library.
• Newspaper archives are useful for the period when the judge was serving.
• Cross-check every date and case name in two independent sources before you put it in the essay.

What a good essay must contain — plan it in five paragraphs:

1. Who they were and where they came from — place of birth, the district or town connecting them to you, education, and how they entered the law.
2. Their path through the judiciary — as an advocate, then elevation to the High Court and, if applicable, to the Supreme Court, with the years. Connect this to the chapter: appointment is by the President of India, and the qualifications are laid down in Article 124 for the Supreme Court and Article 217(2) for a High Court.
3. Their contribution as a judge — this is the heart of the essay. Take one or two judgments and explain, in your own words, what the case was about, what the court decided and why it mattered to ordinary people. Use the chapter’s vocabulary: was this a case of writ jurisdiction, a PIL, an appeal, a matter of interpreting the Constitution?
4. Their work beyond judging — legal aid, Lok Adalats, judicial education, committees or commissions, writing.
5. Why they are remembered — end with your own assessment, supported by what you have set out above, not with praise you cannot back.

Sample answer — an opening paragraph in the right register (fill in from your own verified research):

“Justice ______________ was born in ______ district of our State in ______ and studied law at ______________. After ______ years of practice at the ______ High Court, chiefly in ______________ matters, ______ was appointed a judge of that High Court in ______ and later elevated to the Supreme Court of India in ______ , retiring in ______ . The judgment for which ______ is best remembered in our district is ______________ , where the question before the court was ______________ . The court held that ______________ . The effect of the decision was that ______________ , which is why the case is still cited whenever ______________ arises.”

Who counts as ‘part of the judicial system’ — far more people than judges. Any of these will give you a real interview: an advocate, a court clerk or reader, a stenographer, a process server, a legal aid volunteer, a mediator, a Lok Adalat member, a notary, a district legal services authority staff member, a law student, or a police officer who has to produce evidence in court. If you know a retired judge, that is best of all; but do not treat the exercise as impossible if you do not.

How to do it well:

1. Ask permission first, say clearly that this is a school project, and fix a time. Go in a group of three or four, one asking, one writing, one keeping time.
2. Prepare your questions in writing and take them along. Ask permission before recording or photographing.
3. Do not ask about any specific case that is going on. Ask about the work, not about litigants. This is both good manners and the correct thing to do.
4. Write up the notes the same day, while you still remember the tone as well as the words.
5. Thank them, and send a copy of your presentation afterwards.

Questions worth asking, grouped as the activity asks:

Structure for the presentation — six slides:

1. Title — who you met, their role, where, and the date.
2. Their place in the system — a small diagram of the court hierarchy from Fig. 4.5 with their position marked, so the class sees where they sit in the pyramid.
3. A day in their work — a simple timeline.
4. Challenges — three points, in their own words where you can quote them.
5. What gives them satisfaction — one point, with the story behind it.
6. What our group learnt — two or three sentences linking back to the chapter.

Sample answer — the kind of finding a group might report:

“We met Shri ______________ , an advocate practising at the District Court, on ______ . He said most of his day is not spent arguing but waiting — for a file, for the other side, for a date. He said the hardest part of the work is explaining to a client why a matter takes as long as it does, and that the biggest change in recent years is that a litigant can now check the status of the case online instead of asking him. What gives him most satisfaction, he said, was a matter settled in a Lok Adalat between two families who had stopped speaking for years, because a judgment would have decided who won but would not have ended the quarrel.”