(a) “The concept of Just and Unjust is contextual. What was just a year back, may turn out to be unjust in today’s context. Changing context should be constantly under scrutiny to prevent miscarriage of justice.” Examine the above statement with suitable examples. (b) “Mindless addiction to Form, ignoring the Substance of the matter, results in rendering of injustice. A perceptive civil servant is one who ignores such literalness and carries out true intent.” Examine the above statement with suitable illustrations.
Approach · directive: “examine”
What it asks · (a) Examine whether justice depends on context and why laws must be reviewed; (b) examine how rigid literalism causes injustice and how a civil servant should follow the spirit of rules.
The question has 2 parts — answer each
- (a) Examine, with suitable examples, whether just and unjust are contextual and why a changing context must be kept under constant scrutiny
- (b) Examine, with suitable illustrations, how addiction to form over substance causes injustice and how a perceptive civil servant carries out the true intent
Open with · Justice rests on enduring values — dignity, equality, fairness — but how they apply must keep pace with a changing society.
Cover
- (a) Courts have revisited old law: Section 377 read down (Navtej Johar, 2018), adultery decriminalised (Joseph Shine, 2018), instant triple talaq struck down (2017).
- (a) Law renewed: colonial criminal codes replaced in 2024; privacy recognised as a fundamental right (2017) for a digital age.
- (a) Caution: context should refine justice, not dilute core rights — relativism can be used to justify majoritarian wrongs.
- (b) Rules are means to ends; literalism, red tape and file-covering can defeat the very purpose of welfare laws.
- (b) Illustrations: denying rations for a failed biometric match; demanding lost documents from flood victims; the perceptive officer finds a lawful alternative.
- (b) Safeguard: discretion must be reasoned, recorded and transparent, or 'true intent' becomes an excuse for arbitrariness.
- (a) Beyond courts: practices once accepted (child labour, dowry, manual scavenging) are now injustices; eligibility limits fixed decades ago need periodic review.
Close with · Justice needs both — laws renewed with changing context and officers who read rules in the light of their purpose.
Add value (verified)
- Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, Year End Review 2023: a total of 1,562 old, redundant and archaic laws scrapped from the statute books since 2014. Year End Review 2023: Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs — PIB, 3 January 2024 ↗“Scrapping of Old, Redundant and Archaic Laws from Statute Books (Total 1562 since 2014)”
- Aristotle: the equitable is just, not as legal justice but as a correction of it, because all law is universal and some cases cannot be rightly covered by a universal statement. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book V (tr. W.D. Ross) — The Internet Classics Archive, MIT ↗“What creates the problem is that the equitable is just, but not the legally just but a correction of legal justice. The reason is that all law is universal but about some things it is not possible to make a universal statement which shall be correct.”
- The Department of Food and Public Distribution's letters of 24 October 2017 and 8 November 2018 told states not to deny genuine NFSA beneficiaries foodgrains for want of Aadhaar or failed biometric authentication. Aadhaar Linkage to PDS — PIB (Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution) ↗“this Department vide letters dated 24/10/2017 and 08/11/2018 has advised all States/UTs that genuine beneficiaries/households shall not be denied from their entitled foodgrains under NFSA only on the ground of not possessing an Aadhaar number, or due to any technical failure of ePoS device including failure of biometric/Aadhaar authentication of beneficiary owing to network/connectivity/linking issues.”
Question: UPSC's CS (Main) 2024, GS Paper IV — paper ↗. Approach: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify) — UPSC publishes no model answers. ·
Model answer · 396 words (UPSC limit 150) · Minimalist IAS
(a) Just and unjust are contextual: why changing context needs constant scrutiny
NCERT observes that successful constitutions balance preserving core values with adapting them to new circumstances. Justice works alike: dignity, equality and fairness endure, but what they demand changes with society, technology and knowledge.
- 2017 · Privacy a fundamental right
- 2017 · Instant triple talaq struck down
- 2018 · Section 377 read down
- 2018 · Adultery decriminalised
- 2024 · Colonial criminal codes replaced
- Courts as correctors: each ruling above revisited a rule that earlier generations accepted as just, and found it unjust in today's light.
- New technology, new rights: privacy became a fundamental right because a digital state and a data economy created dangers older readings could not foresee.
- Society moves on: child labour, dowry and manual scavenging, once passed off as custom, are now recognised injustices.
- Statute book pruned: 1,562 old, redundant and archaic laws were scrapped between 2014 and 2023 (PIB); welfare eligibility limits fixed decades ago likewise need periodic revision.
- The caution: context should refine justice, not dissolve it; a popular mood cannot make discrimination just or justify diluting core rights.
Constant review by legislatures, courts, law commissions and citizens keeps justice alive without making it arbitrary.
(b) Form over substance breeds injustice: the perceptive civil servant
Aristotle saw the problem: all law is universal, yet some cases cannot be rightly covered by a universal rule, so equity is 'a correction of legal justice' where the rule's generality fails. Rules are means; their purpose is the end.
- Ration and biometrics: the food department's letters of 24 October 2017 and 8 November 2018 advised states not to deny genuine beneficiaries foodgrains for want of Aadhaar or a failed biometric check. The perceptive officer applies that spirit at the ration shop.
- Flood relief: victims whose papers the flood destroyed should get relief on the panchayat's verification, with documents reconciled later.
- A critical patient: no referral slip or identity card should outweigh saving a life.
- File-covering: a pension file returned again and again for trivial defects protects the officer, not the citizen.
- Constitutional echo: Article 142 lets the Supreme Court pass any order necessary for doing complete justice.
- The limit: looking past literalness is not ignoring the law; discretion must be reasoned, recorded and reviewable, or 'true intent' becomes a licence for favouritism.
Fidelity to the purpose of law, openly reasoned, is what turns a rule-follower into a public servant.
Written by Minimalist IAS from facts checked at source (how we verify) — a little fuller than exam length, so every part of the question is covered; in the hall, keep the structure and trim the detail. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.