Article 17: abolition of untouchability - Constitutional Law I

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Short but distinctive. Article 17 is two sentences long and is usually set as a short note. What earns the marks is not length but the four features that make it unlike any other fundamental right.

1. The text

Article 17 provides that “Untouchability” is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden, and that the enforcement of any disability arising out of “Untouchability” shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law.

2. Four features worth naming

Absolute. Unlike Articles 19 or 25, Article 17 admits of no reasonable restriction, no exception, and no saving clause. There is no circumstance in which untouchability may lawfully be practised.
Available against private persons. Most of Part III binds the State. Article 17 binds everyone. Along with Articles 15(2), 23 and 24, it is one of the rights enforceable horizontally, which is essential because untouchability was practised by society rather than by government.
It creates a constitutional mandate to punish. The second sentence directs that enforcement of a disability be made an offence, which is unusual: the Constitution rarely requires the creation of criminal liability.
The term is left undefined. Neither the Constitution nor the legislation defines “untouchability”. It is placed in inverted commas in the text, indicating that it is used in its historical and conventional sense — the practice associated with caste and ritual purity — and not in a literal sense that would cover, say, social boycott for unrelated reasons.

3. The legislation

Two statutes give Article 17 effect, and both should be named.

The Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, originally enacted as the Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955 and renamed in 1976. It punishes the enforcement of disabilities in relation to religious institutions, shops, public places, hospitals, educational institutions, the use of water sources, and the practice of a profession. Offences under it are cognizable and non-compoundable.

The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, which addresses the wider range of atrocities and creates special courts. Article 17 is its constitutional foundation, together with Articles 15 and 46.

4. Related provisions

Article 17 does not stand alone, and connecting it improves an answer:

Article 15(2) — access to shops, wells, tanks, roads and places of public resort, also enforceable against private persons.
Article 25(2)(b) — the State may throw open Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus. This is the provision under which temple-entry legislation is made, and it is expressly protected against a freedom-of-religion challenge.
Article 46 — a directive principle requiring the State to promote the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections, particularly the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and to protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation.
Article 35 — Parliament alone, and not State legislatures, has power to prescribe punishment for acts declared offences under Article 17.

5. The point to close on

Article 17 is a rare instance of the Constitution addressing a social practice directly rather than regulating State power. The framers were not merely allocating authority; they were declaring that a form of social organisation was incompatible with the republic they were founding. Dr Ambedkar's presence in the Drafting Committee gives the provision an obvious significance, and an answer may say so.

How this is examined

Almost always as a short note: abolition of untouchability, or Article 17. Occasionally as part of a wider question on social justice under the Constitution, alongside Articles 15, 16 and 46.

For the short note, the reliable structure is: quote the Article; state that “untouchability” is undefined and used in its historical sense; give the four features, particularly that it is absolute and enforceable against private persons; name both statutes with their years; and connect it to Articles 15(2), 25(2)(b), 35 and 46. That is a complete answer in under a page.

Now go and read the questions themselves: Constitutional Law I past question papers.