GS Paper IV 2024 · Q4 (Section A)
2 parts · 10 marks and 150 words each Ethics in public administration X-Ray · Core #1Q4(a) 10 marks · 150 words · answered on its own
“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.
Approach · directive: “examine (with suitable examples)”
What it asks · Test the claim that the just and the unjust change with context and that changing context needs constant scrutiny; give examples and mark where the claim stops.
It asks 3 things — answer each
- Examine whether the just and the unjust are contextual
- Give suitable examples of what was once held just and is now held unjust
- Show why changing context needs constant scrutiny, and where the claim stops
Open with · Justice rests on enduring values, but what they demand shifts with society, technology and knowledge; NCERT notes that successful constitutions balance preserving core values and adapting them to new circumstances.
Cover
- A timeline of five turning points, 2017 to 2024: privacy, instant triple talaq, Section 377, adultery and the colonial criminal codes.
- Courts correcting themselves: Navtej Johar (2018) overruled Koushal, which had upheld Section 377.
- New technology and a changing society: privacy for a digital age; child labour, dowry and manual scavenging now recognised as injustices.
- Pruning the statute book: 1,562 archaic laws scrapped between 2014 and 2023; old welfare thresholds need the same scrutiny.
- The limit: Kesavananda Bharati (1973) puts the basic structure beyond Parliament's amending power; context refines justice but never dissolves it.
Close with · Ambedkar's endorsement of Jefferson's view of each generation as a distinct nation, not bound by the last: justice stays alive when each generation re-examines its laws against the Constitution's core.
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)”
- Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India (Supreme Court, 6 September 2018): the earlier decision in Suresh Koushal, which had upheld the classification of sexual acts in Section 377 IPC, is overruled.Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, Supreme Court of India, 6 September 2018 — Indian Kanoon ↗“The decision in Suresh Koushal (supra), not being in consonance with what we have stated hereinabove, is overruled.”
- Dr B.R. Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly (25 November 1949) quoted Jefferson that each generation is a distinct nation with no right to bind the next, called this 'absolutely true', and pointed to the Constitution's easy amendment procedure as proof that the Assembly had not put a seal of finality and infallibility upon it.Constituent Assembly Debates, 25 November 1949 (Dr B.R. Ambedkar) — Constitution of India (constitutionofindia.net) ↗“We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of the majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.”
Question: UPSC's CS (Main) 2024, GS Paper IV — paper ↗. Approach: Minimalist IAS, checked 3 Oct 2026 (how we verify) — UPSC publishes no model answers. ·
Model answer· 215words · Minimalist IAS
Justice rests on enduring values (dignity, equality, fairness), but what they demand shifts with society, technology and knowledge. NCERT notes that successful constitutions balance 'preserving core values and adapting them to new circumstances'.
- 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 correcting themselves: Navtej Johar (2018) overruled the Court's own Koushal ruling, which had upheld Section 377: what one bench held just, the next held unjust.
- New technology, new rights: privacy became a fundamental right as a digital state and a data economy created dangers older readings had not foreseen.
- Society moves on: child labour, dowry and manual scavenging, once passed off as custom, are now recognised injustices.
- Pruning the statute book: 1,562 old, redundant and archaic laws were scrapped between 2014 and 2023; welfare thresholds fixed decades ago need the same scrutiny.
- The limit: context refines justice, never dissolves it. Kesavananda Bharati (1973) placed the Constitution's basic structure beyond even Parliament's amending power, and no popular mood can make discrimination just.
Ambedkar, in the Constituent Assembly's final debate (1949), endorsed Jefferson's view of each generation as 'a distinct nation', not bound by the last. Justice stays alive when each generation re-examines its laws against the Constitution's core.
Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 3 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.
Q4(b) 10 marks · 150 words · answered on its own
“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 (with suitable illustrations)”
What it asks · Examine how mindless attachment to form over substance renders injustice, and how far a perceptive civil servant should look past literal rules to carry out their intent.
It asks 3 things — answer each
- Examine how addiction to form, ignoring substance, renders injustice
- Illustrate how a perceptive civil servant carries out the true intent
- Mark the limits of looking past literal rules
Open with · Krishna Iyer's humanist rule that procedure should be the handmaid, not the mistress, of legal justice: form exists to serve substance, and a rule followed for its own sake defeats the purpose it was made for.
Cover
- A flowchart of the perceptive officer's method: the rule, its purpose, a lawful route to it, reasons recorded, open to review.
- Rations and biometrics: the food department's 2017 and 2018 letters against denying genuine beneficiaries for want of Aadhaar or a failed biometric check.
- A judge who lived it: Krishna Iyer had a Tihar prisoner's note on torture converted into a petition in 1980 (Sunil Batra); PIL by letter or telegram.
- Relief and pensions: flood victims verified by the panchayat; pension files returned for trivial defects.
- The limit: Aristotle's equity as a correction of legal justice, not its abolition; discretion reasoned, recorded and reviewable, never favouritism.
Close with · Article 142's power to pass any order necessary for doing complete justice; a perceptive civil servant's equivalent is open, reasoned fidelity to the purpose of the law.
Add value (verified)
- Sushil Kumar Sen v. State of Bihar (Supreme Court, 17 March 1975), Krishna Iyer J.: processual law can so dominate as to overpower substantive rights; the humanist rule is that procedure should be the handmaid, not the mistress, of legal justice.Sushil Kumar Sen v. State of Bihar, Supreme Court of India, 17 March 1975 (Krishna Iyer J.) — Indian Kanoon ↗“The processual law so dominates in certain systems as to overpower substantive rights and substantial justice. The humanist rule that procedure should be the handmaid, not the mistress, of legal justice compels consideration of vesting a residuary power in Judges to act ex debito justiciae where the tragic sequel otherwise would be wholly inequitable.”
- 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.”
- 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.”
Question: UPSC's CS (Main) 2024, GS Paper IV — paper ↗. Approach: Minimalist IAS, checked 3 Oct 2026 (how we verify) — UPSC publishes no model answers. ·
Model answer· 223words · Minimalist IAS
In 1975 Justice Krishna Iyer invoked 'the humanist rule that procedure should be the handmaid, not the mistress, of legal justice'. Form exists to serve substance; followed for its own sake, a rule defeats the purpose it was made for.
- Rule
- Its purpose
- Lawful route to it
- Reasons recorded
- Open to review
- Rations 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; a perceptive officer honours that intent at the ration shop.
- A judge who lived it: in 1980 Krishna Iyer had a Tihar prisoner's scribbled note on torture converted into a petition (Sunil Batra); PIL let even a letter or telegram be treated as a petition.
- Relief and pensions: flood victims whose papers were washed away deserve relief on the panchayat's verification; a pension file returned again and again for trivial defects protects the officer, not the pensioner.
- The limit: Aristotle saw equity as 'a correction of legal justice', not its abolition; looking past the letter must be reasoned, recorded and reviewable, or 'true intent' becomes a licence for favouritism.
Under Article 142 the Supreme Court may pass any order necessary for doing complete justice; a perceptive civil servant's equivalent is open, reasoned fidelity to the purpose of the law.
Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 3 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.
