CLAT PG 2020 Previous Question Paper – Passage 7

This series of articles contains the complete CLAT PG 2020 question paper, conducted for the LLM admissions through the CLAT 2020 exam. In 2020, the pattern of the question paper was changed from the traditional MCQs to a ‘Comprehension based’ model. Each article in this series has one passage and the ten questions following it.

This article contains Passage 7 and the associated questions. The video embedded below discusses the answers as per the official key and the approach that can be used for such questions.

The answers to all the questions, for all the passages in the CLAT PG question paper are discussed in our YouTube video series at : https://www.youtube.com/lawmint

To make use of this question paper :
(1) The links to the complete series of articles is given below
(2) Read the passages and questions that follow
(3) Open our YouTube channel in another window or on your mobile phone (The video covering this specific passage is also embedded below.)
(4) Go through the series of videos where the answers to all the questions are discussed

The original plan by the CLAT Consortium was to have 10 passages, with 10 questions per passage and a subjective part. However, the subjective part was dropped and the number of passages was increased.

The CLAT PG 2020 exam had 12 passages, 120 questions – to be answered in 120 minutes. Click on the links below for the individual passages and the questions associated with the passage.

Authentic Feedback from previous LawMint users :

I got AIR 21 in CLAT PG. Thank you so much. Your mocks helped me a lot in my preparation 🙂 - Ayushi Jain

I have subscribed to your CLAT PG program and got AIR 36 in this year CLAT PG. I have also secured AIR 54 in AILET PG exam. I would like to thank you. Your mock paper really helps a lot - Shrashank Tripathi

I would like to thank you for the CLAT PG LLM COURSE. Practising mock tests there helped me in getting confidence and hence I was able to get AIR 45 in CLAT PG LLM - Akshay Awasthi

A year back, I relied on the IIT Kharagpur RGSOIPL mock test series by LawMint to prepare for my RGSOIPL entrance test. Few months back, I relied on your UGC NET Law series to prepare for UGC NET. I was the topper of the RGSOIPL entrance, and have cracked JRF in UGC NET. All thanks to LawMint - Anshuman Sahoo

"I got AIR 18 in CLAT PG and General Category rank 28 in AILET PG. I want to thank you for helping me practice well in controlled conditions from any place. It gave me a lot of confidence and I took the tests while travelling too. I also made it to IIT Kharagpur." - Vinodharani

"Lawmint has been of great help to me in securing AIR 25 in AILET PG and AIR 29 in CLAT PG examinations. The subjective and objective approach of the test series kept me up to date with the latest exam pattern." - Bhawna Nanda

"I, Nimmy Saira Zachariah joined you clat test series. I cleared AILET PG with 30th rank. Your test series were of immense help as it gave me clear idea of where my preparations stand thank you once again law mint." - Nimmy S Z

"Hey guys. Where do I start? If I thought that getting AIR 59 in Clat PG was it, then how wrong I was. With Lawmint now I have cracked UGC NET as well." - Joyanta Chakraborty

---

• CLAT PG 2020 – Comprehension Passage 1
• CLAT PG 2020 – Comprehension Passage 2
• CLAT PG 2020 – Comprehension Passage 3
• CLAT PG 2020 – Comprehension Passage 4
• CLAT PG 2020 – Comprehension Passage 5
• CLAT PG 2020 – Comprehension Passage 6
• CLAT PG 2020 – Comprehension Passage 7
• CLAT PG 2020 – Comprehension Passage 8
• CLAT PG 2020 – Comprehension Passage 9
• CLAT PG 2020 – Comprehension Passage 10
• CLAT PG 2020 – Comprehension Passage 11
• CLAT PG 2020 – Comprehension Passage 12

---

CLAT PG Comprehension Passage 7

Read the excerpts from an opinion piece entitled “Labour Law Suspension: Hit The Workers When They Are Down” by Pranab Bardhan, Professor of Graduate School at the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, published by Bloomberg Quint and answer the questions below:

It is interesting that while Indian states are trying to suspend labour protection and make it easier for employers to sack workers, many other countries are trying to minimise lay-offs in this period of crisis by giving wage subsidy to employers to induce them to keep the workers on the payroll. These programs are an effort to reduce displacement, distress, and loss of worker morale, and at the time of economic recovery less friction and de-skilling. The wage subsidies are quite substantial in Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It is also being attempted in some developing countries like Argentina, Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Malaysia, Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, and Turkey.

In the continuing sordid saga of callousness and brutality with the millions of suddenly unemployed migrant workers over the last six weeks since lockdown, an interesting fact to note is that employers who mostly had stopped paying them over this period, thus causing widespread hunger and homelessness, have lobbied with state governments to stop sending them back to their villages so that they remain available when the industries restart. I am actually in favour of a thorough overhaul. The current labour laws, tangled and outdated as they are, serve the long-term interests of neither the employers nor the workers. At the beginning of this century, the Second National Commission of Labour made a whole set of sensible recommendations for such an overhaul, but they remain largely unimplemented. I would support abolishing the firm size limit on labour retrenchment altogether, provided there is a provision for adequate unemployment benefits, both for regular and contract workers, and there is something like a state-provided universal basic income supplement as a fall-back option for everybody. “Allowing more flexibility in hiring and firing has to be combined, as part of a package deal, with a reasonable scheme of unemployment compensation from an earmarked fund, to which employers and employees should both regularly contribute. ” For far too long businesses in India, with some notable exceptions, have considered labour as a necessary but troublesome cog in the production machine, and the focus is to squeeze the maximum out of it with minimum pay and benefits while brandishing the threat of job insecurity.

Organised labour, often under politicised partisan leadership from outside, has played that adversarial game. It is in the long-term interests of both sides to see at the ground level that labour-friendly practices can actually enhance longterm productivity and profitability. If cooperation can replace mutual suspicion and labour representatives can be trusted to participate in corporate governance—as is the practice, say, in Germany and a few other European countries—labour organisations can play a responsible role in achieving mutually beneficial goals. Taking the cover of the pandemic to unilaterally whittle down labour protections is going the opposite way, to distrust, and labour unrest.

61. The Government of Uttar Pradesh and many other state governments promulgated Ordinances for Temporary Exemption from Certain Labour Laws that would suspend the operation of all labour laws applicable to factories and manufacturing establishments in their respective state for a period of three years, with the exception of:
a) Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976
b) Employees’ Compensation Act, 1923,
c) The Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996
d) All the above

62. On which of the following areas, Central Government is exclusively competent to enact legislations?
a) Trade unions; industrial and labour disputes.
b) Social security and social insurance; employment and unemployment.
c) Welfare of labour including conditions of work, provident funds, employers’ liability, workmen’s compensation, invalidity and old age pensions and maternity benefits.
d) Regulation of labour and safety in mines and oilfields.

63. Which of the following laws has been enacted to prevent exploitation of inter-state migrant workers and, to ensure fair and decent conditions of employment for them?
a) The Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979
b) Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970
c) Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976
d) Migrant Workers (Protection) Act, 1979

64. The Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948 protects the interest of workers in contingencies such as —
I. Sickness
II. Maternity,
III. Temporary or permanent physical disablement,
IV. Death due to employment injury resulting in loss of wages or earning capacity.
Select the correct answer from the codes given bellow:
a) I only
b) II only
c) I, III and IV
d) I, II, III and IV

65. As per the provisions contained in Chapter VB of the Industrial Dispute Act, 1947, establishment employing persons or more are required to seek prior permission of Appropriate Government before effecting lay-off, retrenchment and closure.
a) 50
b) 100
c) 250
d) 500

66. ‘First come last go and last come first go ’ is the principle of:
a) Lay-off
b) Closure
c) Retrenchment
d) Dismissal

67. Which of the following is an illegal industrial action as per law?
a) Mutual Insurance
b) Collective Bargaining
c) Lock out
d) Gherao

68. Choose the correct objective of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.
a) To prevent illegal strikes
b) To promote measures for securing and preserving good relations between the employers and the employees
c) To provide relief to workmen in matters of lay – off, retrenchment, wrongful dismissals
d) All of the above

69. Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 applies to every establishment/ contractor in which workmen are employed or were employed on any day of the preceding twelve months as contract labour.
a) Ten or more
b) Fifteen
c) Twenty or more
d) Twenty-five or more

70. The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 shall not apply to establishments in which work is of:
a) An intermittent or casual nature
b) In nature of Permanent work
c) Both a) and b)
d) None of the above.

Authentic Feedback from previous LawMint users :

I got AIR 21 in CLAT PG. Thank you so much. Your mocks helped me a lot in my preparation 🙂 - Ayushi Jain

I have subscribed to your CLAT PG program and got AIR 36 in this year CLAT PG. I have also secured AIR 54 in AILET PG exam. I would like to thank you. Your mock paper really helps a lot - Shrashank Tripathi

I would like to thank you for the CLAT PG LLM COURSE. Practising mock tests there helped me in getting confidence and hence I was able to get AIR 45 in CLAT PG LLM - Akshay Awasthi

A year back, I relied on the IIT Kharagpur RGSOIPL mock test series by LawMint to prepare for my RGSOIPL entrance test. Few months back, I relied on your UGC NET Law series to prepare for UGC NET. I was the topper of the RGSOIPL entrance, and have cracked JRF in UGC NET. All thanks to LawMint - Anshuman Sahoo

"I got AIR 18 in CLAT PG and General Category rank 28 in AILET PG. I want to thank you for helping me practice well in controlled conditions from any place. It gave me a lot of confidence and I took the tests while travelling too. I also made it to IIT Kharagpur." - Vinodharani

"Lawmint has been of great help to me in securing AIR 25 in AILET PG and AIR 29 in CLAT PG examinations. The subjective and objective approach of the test series kept me up to date with the latest exam pattern." - Bhawna Nanda

"I, Nimmy Saira Zachariah joined you clat test series. I cleared AILET PG with 30th rank. Your test series were of immense help as it gave me clear idea of where my preparations stand thank you once again law mint." - Nimmy S Z

"Hey guys. Where do I start? If I thought that getting AIR 59 in Clat PG was it, then how wrong I was. With Lawmint now I have cracked UGC NET as well." - Joyanta Chakraborty

---