CHAPTER 4-UNDERSTANDING LAWS

Answer the following questions:

1. What is the ‘Rule of Law’?

Answer –

The rule of law means is that all laws apply equally to all citizens of the country
and no one can be above the law.

2. State two reasons why historians refute the claim that the British introduced the rule of law in
India.

Answer –

The two reasons are –

First, that colonial law was arbitrary.

Second that the Indian nationalists played a prominent role in the development of the legal sphere in British India.

3. What was the ‘Sedition Act of 1870’?

Answer –

According to the Sedition Act of 1870, any person protesting or criticising the British government could be arrested without due trial.

4. What was the ‘Hindu Succession Amendment Act, 2005’?

Answer –

According to the Hindu Succession Amendment Act 2005, sons, daughters and their mothers can get an equal share of family property.

5. Explain the term ‘domestic’ according to the ‘Protection of Women from Domestic
Violence Act 2005’.

Answer –

According to ‘The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005’, the term ‘domestic’ includes all women who ‘live or have lived together in a shared household’ with the male member who is perpetrating the violence.

6. What do you understand by ‘domestic violence’ ?

Answer –

Domestic violence generally refers to the injury or harm or threat of injury or harm caused by an adult male, usually the husband, against his wife. Injury may be caused by physically beating up the woman or by emotionally abusing her. Abuse of the woman can also include verbal, sexual, and economic abuse.

7. When did the ‘Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act’ come into effect?

Answer – In 2006.

8. What was the Civil Rights Act, 1964 of U.S.A.?

Answer –

The Civil Rights Movement led to the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
The Civil Rights Act, 1964 of the U.S.A. prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, religion or national origin in the U.S.A.