Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

"We do not think that the principle that the power to review must be conferred by Statute either specifically or by necessary implication is applicable to decisions purely of an administrative nature."

In view of the above pronouncement of the Supreme Court on which the appellant places strong reliance, it must be held that pure administrative decisions can generally be reviewed even without the authority of statutory provision. But the real question is, in what sense the phrase "pure administrative order" should be understood. Can the order passed by the authorised officer under sec.3cl. (4) of the Rent Control Act be treated as a pure administrative order? It is wrong to ask what is an administrative order. For the reasons which we will show later on, we think it is wrong to ask what is an administrative order . That way we cannot get the right answer. We should not forget that a wrong question may not get a right answer. We should remember that the phrase "administrative order" in law, does not denote an object nor it cannote a name of thing. That phrase is generally used in the context of judicial supervision exercised by superior courts of law over acts of administrative bodies adversely affecting the rights of persons. It is an axiom of British Jurisprudence that law alone can adversely effect legal rights and the executive cannot do that. From that it follows that wherever an order of an administrator (outside legislation) adversely affects the rights of persons, supremacy of law should impose judicial control and supervision on such orders. For such purpose, such orders when passed by bodies other than courts, are called judicial or quasi-judicial indicating their amendability to judicial supervision. But when such orders are passed by bodies other than courts without affecting the legal rights of persons they are called administrative orders indicating thereby that no judicial supervision is called for in such cases. IN other words, the term administrative order is used to indicate an act of the State not affecting the citizen's rights. The actions of administrator affecting adversely rights of persons inviting judicial supervision are given the common appellation of judicial or quasi-judicial and the other acts of administrator not interfering with the rights of persons and therefore not calling for judicial supervision, are called administrative orders. The essence of this characterization, at least in administrative law, consists in its invitation judicial supervision and in nothing else. It is now recognised that application of these appellations has, in the past, led sometimes to circular reasoning and unsatisfactory results. For example, in Rex v. Legislative Committee of the Church of England Ex.P.Haynes v. Smith (1928) 1 KB 411 Lord Hewart C.J., observed to the effect that it is not enough for a body to attract judicial supervision to be having legal authority to determine question affecting the rights of subjects and passing an order adversely affecting the rights of person , but there must be super-added to that the further characteristic of duty to act judicially. Now the report of the Committee on Minister's powers (1932) accepting the above dictum of Lord Justice Hewart defined an administrative order in the following terms.

"In the case of administrative decision, there is no legal obligation upon a person charged with the duty of reaching a decision to consider and weigh submissions and arguments or to collate any evidence or to solve any issue. The grounds upon which he acts,and the means to which he takes to inform himself before acting are left entirely to his discretion."

Under this classification an order although adversely affecting person's rights would not attract judicial supervision because the Statute did not put the body under a duty to act judicially. The report on Minister's powers overlooked the purpose underlying the classification of State acts into judicial, quasi-judicial and administrative. The fact that the purpose of classification in furctional and not conceptual is overlooked. The report is based on conceptualistic reasoning. The result of acceptance of the above conceptualistic theory by the report has led to the awkward situation of denying the availability of certiorari to remedy the citizen's injury from State action and to arbitrary refusal to apply principles of natural justice to several orders affecting the rights of the subject (see Nakkuda Ali v. Jayaratne (1951) AC 66). Now the recent developments in the English administrative law beginning particularly with the Frank's Committee Report (1955) and the judgment of the Houser of Lords in Ridge v. Baldwin (1964)Ac 40 had greatly repaired the damage done by this conceptualistic thought to the rights of citizens. These developments in administrative law rejected the above conceptualistic approach. These developments have placed less emphasis on the classification of powers into judicial or quasi-judicial or administrative in considering the justification for judicial review or in the application of the principles of natural justice. These developments have resurrected the theory that administrative orders are subject to the controlling jurisdiction of the superior courts without there being any necessity for a court first to classify the action and to apply the appropriate label, and without any necessity for the Statute, providing for duty to act judicially. Lord Hodson observed in Ridge v. Baldwin (supra).

Consequently today wherever citizen's rights are adversely affected the proceeding of the administrator is treated as quasi-judicial supervision. In Acc v. Sharma, , a constitution Bench of our Supreme Court had accepted this great change that had overtaken the theory of judicial supervision of administrative orders. After referring to Ridge v. Baldwin (1964 AC 40) (supra) our Supreme Court observed in the above Sharma's case thus (at P.1602):

"In other words, according to Lord Reid's judgement, the necessity to follow judicial procedure and observe the principles of natural justice, flows from the nature of the decisions which the Watch Committee had been authorised to reach under sec.191(4). It would thus be seen that the area where the principles of natural justice have to be followed and the judicial approach has to be adopted had become wider....."

7. There are a few more decisions on which the appellant has relied upon or to which he made a passing reference. None of them can be counted as helpful to the appellant. In Ghulam Abbas v. State of U.P. one of the questions that had fallen for the consideration of the Supreme Court was,whether an order issued under section 144 of the new Criminal Procedure Code is a judicial order. That question arose before their Lordships in the context of availability of judicial supervision under article 32 of the Constitution. Their Lordships answered that question in the negative holding that an order passed under Section 144 of the present Code will have to be regarded as an executive order passed in performance of an executive function. For our present purposes it is important to note what their Lordships thought to be the relevant criterial for deciding that question. Their Lordships observed that no lis as to any rights between rival parties is adjudicated, under article 32 of the Constitution. It is clear that the above observations of the Supreme Court would negative the appellant's conceptulistic contention. On the other hand, those observations would show that the proper test to be applied is functional and that where there is lis between two parties regarding the rights inter se. the order passed by the authority would be treated as quasi-judicial. The other decision in Nagalakshmaiah v. State of A.P. (1973) 2 Serv LR 105(1973 Lab IC 656((FB) of this Court cited before us does not appear to have any bearing on the question in issue. We find that the decisions of the Supreme Court in the State of A.P. v. Parasuram do not support the contention of the appellant. The question which had fallen for consideration in that case was whether in appointing non-hereditary trustees to temples under section 15 of A.P. Charitable and Hindu Religious Endownment Institutions Act of 1966, the authorities are acting judicially. The Supreme Court held that in appointing a non-hereditary trustee, the concerned authorities do not act judicially. In view of the settled legal position that no rights, inter parties, are adjudicated upon by the authority in appointing trustees, the Supreme Court held, that appointing trustees, does not involve any exercise of quasi-judicial power. In deciding so, the Supreme Court has set out two principles. The first principle dealt with a classic triangular situation of a lis inter parties and its settlement by a third party. The Supreme Court held that in such a court-like situation the duty to act judicially would be implied, unless excluded by the statute. As contrasted with the above, the Supreme Court also considered a situation where without there being two parties a statutory authority has power to do an act which will prejudicially affect the subject. In such a situation the Supreme Court held that the duty to act judicially could be implied if the statue expressly provided for it. It must be observed that the second principle echoes the dictum of Lord Hewart made in the above Church of England Case (1928-1KB 411)(supra) and heard through Khushaldas Advani case (AIR rendered before Ridge v. Baldwin (1964 AC 40) and Sharma's case . In view of the judgment of our Supreme Court rendered subsequent to Ridge v. Baldwin (supra) and specifically in view of the above mentioned Sharma's case and others, the rule in Kushaldas Advani case may no longer be the governing rule. But, we are concerned in this case with the first type of situation where there is a lis between the landlord and the licencee and its settlement by a designated officer. In such a situation, it is clear that the Supreme Court has always been implying a duty to act judicially. Parusuram's case , therefore, cannot be cited in support of the appellant's present contention.