CLAT UG flashcards
CLAT UG · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Ratio decidendi
- The legal principle or rule that is the basis of a court's decision; it binds lower courts as precedent in subsequent similar cases.
- Obiter dicta
- Remarks made by a judge that are incidental to the decision and not essential to it; they are persuasive but not binding on lower courts.
- Mens rea
- The guilty mind or mental element required for most criminal offences; it must coincide with the guilty act for liability to arise.
- Actus reus
- The physical element of a crime - the prohibited act, omission, or state of affairs; it must be voluntary and causally linked to the harm.
- Res ipsa loquitur
- A tort doctrine meaning 'the thing speaks for itself'; negligence is inferred when the accident would not normally occur without negligence and the defendant controlled the cause.
- Basic structure doctrine
- Constitutional principle from Kesavananda Bharati (1973) that Parliament cannot amend the Constitution in a way that destroys its essential features.
- Article 368
- The constitutional provision that lays down the procedure for amending the Constitution of India, including special majority requirements and ratification by states.
- Repo rate
- The rate at which the Reserve Bank of India lends short-term funds to commercial banks; changes signal the direction of monetary policy.
- Paris Agreement
- A 2015 international treaty under the UNFCCC in which nations commit to nationally determined contributions to limit global warming to well below 2°C.
- Finance Commission
- A constitutional body under Article 280, constituted every five years, that recommends distribution of tax revenues between the Union and states.
- Syllogism
- A form of deductive reasoning with two premises and a conclusion; validity is tested by checking whether the conclusion follows in every possible Venn diagram.
- Contrapositive
- The logically equivalent form of 'If P then Q', namely 'If not Q then not P'; unlike the converse, it is always valid.
- Necessary assumption
- An unstated premise without which the argument fails; negating it should make the conclusion collapse if it is truly necessary.
- Correlation vs causation
- Two variables moving together does not prove one causes the other; alternative explanations and reverse causation must be ruled out in logical reasoning.
- Blood relations
- Logical reasoning questions requiring conversion of family statements into a tree with generations and genders marked, then answering relationship queries.
- Successive percentage change
- For changes of a% and b%, the net change is a + b + ab/100; a 10% rise followed by 10% fall gives a net 1% decrease.
- Compound interest formula
- CI = P(1 + R/100)^T − P, where P is principal, R the annual rate, and T the time in years; interest is added to principal each period.
- Relative speed
- The rate at which the distance between two moving objects changes; add speeds when moving in opposite directions and subtract when moving in the same direction.
- Weighted average
- An average where each value is multiplied by its weight, summed, and divided by the total weight; used for mixed groups and partnership problems.
- nCr
- The number of ways to choose r items from n without regard to order, given by n!/[r!(n−r)!]; used in selection and probability problems.
- Mutually exclusive events
- Events that cannot occur at the same time; their combined probability is the sum of individual probabilities, with no overlap.
- Tone in a passage
- The author's attitude toward the subject, conveyed through word choice; options like critical, neutral, or laudatory must match textual evidence.
- Inference question
- A reading question asking what must be true based on the passage; the correct answer is necessarily supported, not merely plausible.
- Para jumble
- A question requiring rearrangement of sentences into a coherent paragraph; mandatory pairs based on pronouns and connectors guide the sequence.
- Vocabulary in context
- A question testing the meaning of a word as used in the passage; the correct option preserves both the sentence's meaning and grammatical fit.
- Circular reasoning
- A logical flaw in which the conclusion is assumed in the premises, offering no independent support for the claim.
- Caveat emptor
- A legal maxim meaning 'let the buyer beware'; the buyer bears the risk of quality unless a warranty or fraud exception applies.
- Audi alteram partem
- A natural justice principle meaning 'hear the other side'; no person should be condemned without a fair opportunity to be heard.
- Fiscal deficit
- The gap between total government expenditure and total revenue excluding borrowings; expressed as a percentage of GDP in budget documents.
- UNSC permanent members
- The five permanent members of the UN Security Council - China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States - each holding veto power.
- Strict liability offence
- A criminal offence where the prosecution need not prove mens rea; liability arises from the prohibited act alone, often in regulatory contexts.
- Writ of mandamus
- A constitutional remedy under Article 32 or 226 commanding a public authority to perform a legal duty it has failed to perform.