UPSC Mains 2015 GS Paper 4 Q3a: model answer
"A mere compliance with law is not enough, the public servant also has to have a well-developed sensibility to ethical issues for effective discharge of duties." Do you agree? Explain with the help of two examples, where (i) an act is ethically right, but not legally and (ii) an act is legally right, but not ethically.
What the question wants
Say whether mere legal compliance is enough for public servants, and give one example each of an act ethically right but illegal, and legally right but unethical.
How to structure it
Agree, two examples, conclusion.
- Why compliance is not enough
- Ethical but not legal
- Legal but not ethical
- Officer
How to think it through
Agree. Law is minimum, can't cover all; ethics fills gaps. (i) ethically right not legally: Gandhi's salt satyagraha 1930 (breaking Salt Act); whistleblower leaking documents in breach of Official Secrets Act to expose wrong; doctor treating accident victim without police formalities earlier (pre-2016 SC Good Samaritan guidelines). (ii) legal not ethical: rejecting application on minor technicality; tax avoidance through loopholes; untouchability earlier was 'legal' practice; legal eviction in monsoon; colonial laws.
Model answer
In 1930, Gandhi walked to Dandi and picked up a lump of salt, breaking the British Salt Law. It was illegal, and almost everyone today calls it right. Law and ethics overlap, but they are not the same map.
Why compliance is not enough
- Law is a minimum: it says what we must not do, rarely what we should do.
- Rules cannot foresee every situation; officers must use discretion, and ethics guides it.
(i) Ethically right, but not legal
- Salt Satyagraha (1930): breaking an unjust colonial law to assert a moral right.
- A citizen who breaks a car window to rescue a child trapped in heat commits a technical offence but acts rightly.
(ii) Legally right, but not ethical
- An officer rejects a widow's pension application for a minor spelling mismatch, though her identity is clear. It is within the rules and still wrong.
For a public servant
- Follow the law, but read it with sensitivity to its purpose, preventing harm its makers never intended.
- Where law itself is unjust, use lawful channels to change it; legal silence never made untouchability ethical.
The law tells an officer where he must stand; ethics tells him which way to face.
Draw: A Venn diagram: 'legal' and 'ethical', with one example in each non-overlapping part.
Keywords, cases and data to drop in
law vs ethics, law as minimum, discretion, Salt Satyagraha 1930, ethically right but illegal, legally right but unethical, technicality, tax loopholes, untouchability, purposive reading.
Where most answers lose marks
- Giving examples that are both legal and ethical, or only one type of example.
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Fresh examples from current affairs
Supreme Court: no prior approval under Section 17A needed to probe a bribe demand
In a judgment of 16 October 2026, a Supreme Court Bench of Justices S.V.N. Bhatti and N.V. Anjaria held that investigating a bribe demand by a public servant does not need prior approval under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Asking for a bribe, the court said, is not part of discharging official duties.
UPSC angle: Prelims: Sections 7, 7A, 17A and 19 of the PC Act. · Mains GS-II/GS-IV: honest officers versus accountability.
19 Oct 2026Learn the concept
Question text as printed in the official UPSC Civil Services (Main) question paper. The model answer is original Battle IAS work; use it to learn structure, not to memorise.
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