Syllabus

• 

•Introduction:
•Administrative Law: Meaning, Definitions, Nature and Scope,
historical growth and development of administrative law: England,
US, France, India, reasons for growth of administrative law
relationship between Constitutional law and Administrative law.
•Basic Constitutional Principles:
•Rule of Law, Interpretation of Dicey’s Principles of Rule of law, Rule
of law in Indian constitution, Modern Concept of Rule of law, Theory
of Separation of Powers, Separation of power in practice in US,
England in India, Separation of power in Indian Constitution.
•Administrative Action:
•Needs for classification of administrative actions, legislative,
executive and judicial functions: general distinctions, distinctions
between administrative and quasi-judicial functions.
• 
•Delegated Legislation:
•Delegated Legislation: Meaning and definition,
reasons of Growth of delegated legislation,
Classification of delegated legislation: Valid,
Excessive, Conditional and Sub-delegation, Control
over the delegated legislation: judicial and
legislative.
•Administrative Adjudication:
•Natural Justice: meaning and scope, Principles of
natural justice: Rule against Bias, The Right to Fair
Hearing Right of Counsel and Friends, Reasoned
decisions, Breach of natural justice and its effects.
• Judicial Control of Administrative action
and discretion:
• Meaning of administrative discretion and
judicial review, Failure to exercise
discretion, excess or abuse of discretion,
judicial remedy to the individual aggrieved
by the action of administrative authority:
Writs and others types of remedy.
•New Growth in Administrative law:
•Administrative Tribunal, Ombudsman, Commission of Inquiries,
Public Corporation.
• 
•Suggested Readings:
•1. Takwani C.K., Lectures on Administrative Law, 5 Edn, 2012,
Eastern Book Company.
•2. I.P.Massey, Administrative Law, Eastern Book Company, 5th Edn.
2001.
•3. Griffith and Street, Principles of Administrative Law.
•4. Wade H.W.R., Administrative Law, Oxford Publications, 8th Edn.
2000, London.
•5. Smith De, Judicial Review of Administrative Action, Sweet and
Maxwell, 1998.
•6. Sathe S.P., Administrative Law, Butterworth’s, 6th Edn. 1998.
• 
• The American approach,
• Kenneth Culp Davis. According to him, Administrative
Law is the law concerning the powers and procedures of
administrative agencies, including especially the law
governing judicial review of administrative action.
• An administrative agency, according to him, is a
governmental authority, other than a court and other
than a legislative body, which affects the rights of private
parties through either adjudication or rule-making.
• Davis goes on to observe further: "Apart from judicial
review, the manner in which public officers handle
business unrelated to adjudication or rule-making is not
a part of administrative law; this means that much of
what political scientists call "public administration" is
excluded
• He says that emphasis of Administrative
Law is on administrative process--
procedures for formal adjudication and for
rule-making.
• It also studies such incidental matters as
investigating, supervising, prosecuting,
negotiating, settling, or informally acting.
• In England, Dicey defined Administrative Law as
denoting that portion of a nation's legal system which
determines the legal status and liabilities of all state
officials, which defines the rights and liabilities of
private individuals in their dealings with public officials,
and which specifies the procedure by which those
rights and liabilities are enforced.
• This definition is narrow and restrictive in so far as it
leaves out of consideration many aspects of
Administrative Law, e.g., it excludes many
administrative authorities which, strictlyspeaking, are
not officials of the state such as public corporations; it
also excludes procedures ofadministrative authorities,
or their various powers and functions, or their control
by Parliament or in other Ways.
• Ivor Jennings: "Administrative law is the law relating
to the Administration. It determines the organisation,
powers and duties of administrative authorities.
• Wade - administrative law is the law relating to the
control of govermental power . According to him ,
the primary purpose of administrative law is to keep
the powers of government within their legal bounds,
so as to protect the citizen against their abuse”
• Upendra baxi- administrative law is a study of the
pathology of power in a developing society.
• GROWTH OF ADMINISTRATIVE LAW
• (a) England
• DICEY'S concept of rule of law did exert some
negative influence on the growth of
Administrative Law in England. DICEY'S
assertions and assumptions, for long threw a
chilly shadow over the growth of
Administrative Law in England. Although what
DICEY meant to say was that England did not
have anything like the French Droit
Administratif,
•
 Droit Administratif
• The most original aspect of the French Administrative Law
is the
• independence of the Administration from judicial control.
The ordinary courts exercise no control over
administrative functioning. In France, a person has no
avenue for redress of grievances against the
administration through the courts. This is the important
point of deviance between the Droit Administratif and the
British or the Common-law system of Administrative Law.
• Autonomy of the Administration from judicial control
does not however mean that it is despotic or is free from
all control. Administration has been able to develop its
own tribunals to supervise it. It is another characteristic
feature of Droit Administratif, viz., that administrative
tribunals supervise administrative functioning
• France has a large number of administrative tribunals,
but the most significant of these is the Conseil d'Etat.

• DICEY'S statements that England had no Administrative

• Law and that such a law was incompatible with Rule of
Law created amongst lawyers a kind of antipathy
towards Administrative Law as such. For long, DICEY'S
thesis generated a sense of complacency among the
English people so that they failed to take notice of the
emergence of Administrative Law as such. For long the
Englishmen regarded Administrative Law as a
'continental jargon' and were not prepared to accept
•
• that anything like it was coming into being
in their own country as well although, in
the meantime, Parliament continued to
confer broad powers on the bureaucracy
through legislation.
• Till the middle of the twentieth century, the
English legal profession hardly
appreciated what Administrative Law was.
• Thus, recognition, identification and study of
Administrative Law in England was very much
delayed.
• One result of this complacency has been that
Administrative Law as a subject of study came
on the scene quite late in the day.
• Another result of this attitude has been that in
England until now development of
Administrative Law has been piecemeal,
unsystematic and planless and it lacks a
coherent corpus.
• Any way, the fact remains that in spite of the negative effect of
DICEY'S assertions, Administrative Law has continued to grow
in England in course of time mainly through two channels: (i)
judicial creativity and (ii)legislation
• The new phase was initiated with the famous
• Ridge v. Baldwin, (1963) 2 All ER 66.
• Lord REID said in his opinion that England did not have a well
developed system of
• Administrative Law.
• Since then a qualitative metamorphosis has come over the
judicial process in England and other common-law countries
as regards the development of Administrative Law.

• .
• Lord DENNING said in Breenv. A.E.U. 34 (1971) 1 All ER
1148, 1153.
• "It may now truly be said that we have a developed system
of Administrative Law." And things
• have changed a great deal since that observation was
made

• The courts have rendered a yeoman service in shaping

and moulding Administrative Law and convert it into a
sophisticated system of rules to regulate administrative
behaviour and to discourage arbitrariness and
lawlessness on the part of the Administration. The courts
have played a very dynamic, creative and constructive role
in developing the corpus of Administrative Law
• The Government appointed in 1929 the Committee on
Ministers' Powers (also known as the Donoughmore
Committee after the name of its Chairman), to
consider the powers exercised by the Administration
by way of--(a) delegated legislation, and
• (b) judicial or quasi-judicial decision, and to report "
what safeguards are desirable or necessary to secure
the constitutional principles of the sovereignty of
Parliament and the supremacy of the Law.
• In 1947, the Crown Proceedings Act was enacted to
liberalise the law relating to civil proceedings against
the Government and making it liable to be used in the
courts and pay damages for contractual and tortious
Liabilities.
• The Committee known as the Committee on Administrative
Tribunals and Enquiries was
• appointed in 1955 and it gave its report in 1957.
• As a result of the Committee's findings and
• recommendations, several procedural improvements have
been effectuated in the working of the tribunals and inquiries
in England. The Tribunals and Inquiries Act was enacted in
1958.
• In 1976 A single procedure, known as "application for judicial
review" has now been introduced. The rule of standing has
also been liberalised to facilitate invocation of judicial review
of administrative action.
• The result of the various developments mentioned above has
been that Administrative Law, which was once characterised in
England as a "continental jargon" has now become
transformed into an identifiable and developed branch of law.
 U.S.
• By force of circumstances, Administrative Law
has inevitably grown in the United States
• the U.S. Attorney-General
• appointed a committee in 1939 to review the
entire administrative process and to recommend
improvements therein. The committee conducted
a thorough probe into the administrative
procedures followed by the various agencies of
the Federal Government and made a report in
1941 .after recommendation of this committee
• the enactment of the Administrative Procedure
Act, 1946.
• The Act strengthens hearing procedures. It provides for a sort of
hearing in exercising the function of delegated legislation. The Act
strengthens provisions for judicial review keeping in view the needs
of flexibility and diversity in administrative process. The Act also
provides for a sort of separation of functions within the same
agency. The Act lays down minimum general principles of a
procedural nature to regulate the exercise of powers by all agencies.
• It is neither a comprehensive nor a detailed code. Its provisions
affect and control the procedures of all administrative tribunals and
agencies whose decisions affect the person or property of private
citizens. The Act "represents a moderate adjustment on the side of
fairness to the citizens in the never-ending quest for the proper
balance between governmental efficiency and individual freedom."
• The Act seeks to judicialize procedures and extend the scope of
judicial review keeping in view the needs of flexibility and diversity
in administrative process.
• An important step was taken in the U.S.A. in 1967
with the enactment of the Freedom of Information
Act with a view to move towards open government,
and remove secrecy in the functioning of
administrative agencies.
• The Act makes it obligatory for an agency to publish
orders, opinions, statements of policy,
interpretations, rules of procedure etc. in the Federal
Register.
• The Freedom of
• Information Act effects a profound change in the
position of the citizen vis-a-vis government.
• A major innovation in the U.S.A. is the creation of a
new Agency, the Administrative Conference of the
United States.
• This agency is now responsible for conducting
continuous research into the problems of
Administrative Law and for initiation of proposals for
reform. It has been created by congressional statute
enacted in 1964.
• It is purely recommendatory body. It makes
recommendations to improve the efficiency
adequacy and fairness of the legal procedures of
federal agencies which affect private rights and
obligations through adjudication, rule-making and
investigation
• A special feature of the American Administrative
Law has been its emphasis on administrative
procedure,i.e., imposing procedural
requirements on active administration. This
American attitude is reflected in Justice
Frankfurter's assertion that "the history of liberty
has largely been the history of the observance of
procedural safeguards".
• Thus, there is emphasis upon procedural
safeguards to ensure the proper exercise of
administrative authority
France and Britain, profoundly differ
in their administrative organisation
France Britain
• 1-The Conseil d'Etat, heir of the Conseil
du Roi, assists the Government in the
• 1-There is no comparable
direction and control of French institution in Great Britain.
administration. It is, at the same time,
the supreme tribunal in matters of
administrative litigation. The Conseil
d'Etat is the symbol of the centralisation
and administrative power. 2-England has a common law,
to which the state is subject,
• 2- In France, the state and the public
services are also subject to the law, but and which the courts apply
it is a special and autonomous law, according to general and
which has its own principles, distinct and
independent from private law.
uniform principles
• 3- In France there is, between the law and 3- in England, the law is
the citizen, a powerful administration
which is entirely independent of the
entirely in the hands of the
organs of justice, that is an autonomous administration of justice.
and creative administrative power, which
directly executes the law and compels
the citizen to respect it
 India
• The law in India can be followed back to old history times. The Maurya and
the Gupta dynasties of Ancient India had incorporated administrative
framework. The rulers in the front time of history were for the most part
concerned significantly around Protecting the state from external
aggression, maintaining law and order, and Collecting taxes. The law since
then has evolved in order to be practiced in present nation.
• With the arrival of the British in India and event of the British Rule in India
there was the advent of modern administrative law. Establishment of East
India Company increased the powers of government. Many Acts, statutes
and Legislation were brought and passed by the British government
regulating public safety, health, morality transport and labour relations.
Practice of permitting Administrative licence began with the State Carriage
Act 1861.
The very first public corporation was established under the Bombay Port
Trust Act 1879. The concept of delegated legislation was accepted as
legitimate power of the Executive within the Northern India Canal and
Drainage Act, 1873 and Opium Act 1878. Proper and effective steps were
taken to manage the trade and traffic in explosives by the Indian Explosives
by the Indian Explosives Act 1884.
• During the Second World War, the executive powers massively expanded
Defence of India Act, 1939 and the guidelines made thereunder conferred
abundant powers on the property of an individual with little or zero judicial
authority over them, In addition to this, the government issued many orders
and ordinances, covering several matters by way of Administrative
directions. Since independence, the activities and the functions of the
government have additionally increased. To illustrate, the amendments in
the Industrial Disputes Act 1947 and the Minimum Wages Act 1948
significantly standardized important social security measures to be taken for
those employed in Industries.
• In Joseph Kuruvilla Vellukunnel vs RB , the Supreme Court held that under
the banking companies Act, 1949, the Reserve Bank was the sole judge to
decide whether the affairs of a banking company were being conducted in a
manner prejudicial to the depositors interest and the court had no option but
to pass an order of winding as prayed for by the reserve bank. In Javid
Rasool Bhat vs state of J&K, the Supreme Court observed that a member of
the Selected Committee can even ask irrelevant questions to explore the
candidates capacity to detect irrelevancies