6/9/23, 11:17 AM Husain Aanis Khan: Constitutional Avoidance by Administrative Law Principles – Administrative Law in the Common Law

mmon Law World

Husain Aanis Khan: Constitutional Avoidance by

Administrative Law Principles

adminlawblogorg
24 Feb 2022

Courts in common law countries – including India

(https://academic.oup.com/ojls/article-abstract/35/3/607/1591197?
redirectedFrom=fulltext), Australia
(http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MelbULawRw/2014/3.html) and the USA
(https://harvardlawreview.org/2015/06/avoiding-constitutional-questions-versus-
avoiding-unconstitutionality/) – often claim to be committed to a doctrine of
constitutional avoidance. By this doctrine, courts interpret statutes in ways that
avoid difficult constitutional questions where it is unnecessary to answer those
questions to decide the case. The doctrine of constitutional avoidance is related to
other substantive constitutional law doctrines animated by the value of judicial
humility, such as the doctrine of precedent, the incremental
(https://oxcon.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/law/9780198704898.001.0001/law-
9780198704898-chapter-4?prd=OXCON) approach to constitutional change and the
idea of ‘decisional minimalism (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?
abstract_id=10256)’.

In this post, I argue that the Rajasthan High Court should have practiced
constitutional avoidance in the recent decision of School Development Management
Committee v. State of Rajasthan Civil Writ Petition No. 16367/2021
(https://www.livelaw.in/pdf_upload/school-development-management-committee-
v-state-of-rajasthan-407046.pdf). That case concerned a challenge to the
establishment of English language schools in what was previously a Hindi language
education context in India. While the Court in that case grounded its judgement in
constitutional provisions, it could and should have reached the same result by
applying administrative law principles. As I will explain, constitutional avoidance
was desirable in that case because: (a) the reliance on constitutional provisions in the
judgement was unnecessary and led to an internal inconsistency; and (b) the former
policy of teaching students in Hindi generated a legitimate expectation that they
would continue to be taught in that language, which legitimate expectation should
have been recognised and protected in the judgement of the Court.

Facts of the case

The Chief Minister of Rajasthan, the largest state in India, proclaimed in a speech the
establishment of English language schools in each village and town of Rajasthan
with 5000 or more inhabitants. If that proclamation had been implemented, it would
have effectively converted the medium of instruction of the schools in the region
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6/9/23, 11:17 AM Husain Aanis Khan: Constitutional Avoidance by Administrative Law Principles – Administrative Law in the Common Law World

from Hindi to English. The concern of the petitioner, viz, the School Development
Management Committee (“SDMC”) of Shri Hari Singh Sr. Sec. School (“Hindi
school”), was that the conversion would close down their school. SDMC is an
authority established in every school in accordance with the Right of Children to Free
and Compulsory Education Act 2009 (“RTE Act”). The SDMC discussed the desirability
of an English language school and resolved that an English language school would
be established in a vacant building of the Hindi school. The Department of
Education of the State Government of Rajasthan nevertheless issued an order to
convert 345 schools from Hindi to English, one of which was the petitioner’s school.

Aggrieved by the order, the SDMC of the Hindi school resolved that the Hindi
school would not be converted because the conversion would negatively affect the
future of their students, especially female students. The SDMC made representations
to the State Government requesting it not to convert the Hindi school. Not seeing
any change in the position of the State Government, the petitioner approached the
High Court.

The Court ultimately found for the petitioner, striking down the policy on the basis
of two provisions of the Indian Constitution:

1. Article 14, because the order was arbitrary as it was not based on research, study
or intelligible criteria, hence it was antithetical
(https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1327287/) to the right to equality before law.
2. Article 19(1)(a), because children at the Hindi School had the right
(https://indiankanoon.org/doc/25217064/) to choose the language of instruction
under the right to freedom of speech and expression.

What went wrong in the judgement

Courts in the past (https://indiankanoon.org/doc/107483/) have delivered

judgements concerning social rights solely on the basis of administrative principles
without referring to fundamental rights. The avoidance
(https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2551831) of constitutional
rulings in cases like these – where the same remedy could be granted using
administrative law principles – has been preferred to guard against the implications
of constitutional guarantees becoming uncontrollably wide or internally
inconsistent.

An example of uncontrolled constitutional implications arising from a failure to

practice constitutional avoidance is the case of Mohini Jain v. State of Karnataka
(https://indiankanoon.org/doc/40715/). There, the Court held that the right to
education was a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution in the
context of a case about medical education. A year later, the Court in Unnikrishnan v.
State of Andhra Pradesh (https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1775396/) partially overruled
the earlier case to confine it. The earlier judgement could and should simply have
held that charging a ‘capitation fee’ was ultra vires under the relevant legislation,
rather than resorting to constitutional principles.

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Similarly, in the present case, the Rajasthan High Court could have held the change
in language policy to be ultra vires because it violated section 29(1) (ie curriculum to
be specified by the State Government) and section 29(2)(f) (ie children must be
taught in their mother tongue) of the RTE Act. This would have allowed the Court to
avoid asking the question of whether changing the language of the schools violated
the students’ freedom of speech and expression.

Another alternative in the present case would have been to premise the judgement
on Wednesbury or natural justice principles on the basis that the state’s decision to
issue the change of language policy without the consent of the SDMC was legally
unreasonable or procedurally unfair. The focus of the judgement thus should have
been the administrative failure to seek the consent of the SDMC. A judgement on
these administrative law principles could have created a guide
(https://adminlawblog.org/2019/04/10/farrah-ahmed-and-swati-jhaveri-reclaiming-
indian-administrative-law/) for administrators and the public on what is expected
before similar policy changes in the future.

Instead, the Court held the State Government’s order was arbitrary and violative of
Article 14. Yet it is difficult to see how that was necessarily so in circumstances
where the State had relied in part on public demand for English schools (and thus
there was an element of public interest underpinning the order). If not completely
avoiding the Article 14 analysis, the Court could have at least referred to Wednesbury
principles to assess the arbitrariness (https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1285195/) and
unreasonableness of the order.

Internal legal inconsistency

Having held that the order to convert the medium of instruction was
unconstitutional, the Court at the same time empowered the SDMC to decide
whether the conversion should happen. This leaves open the possibility that the
SDMC will decide to convert the medium of instruction to English despite the
holding that such a result (at least on the facts as they were presented to the Court)
was unconstitutional. There is an obvious internal inconsistency in this result that
could have been avoided by not commenting on the powers of the SDMC. An
approach more consonant with decisional minimalism
(https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=10256) would thus have made
the judgement more coherent.

Legitimate expectations

The most obvious non-constitutional basis on which the case could have been
decided was the contested (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?
abstract_id=2738799) administrative law doctrine of legitimate expectations.
Students and parents had a legitimate expectation that students would continue to
be taught in Hindi because the former policy created a bilateral relationship between
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6/9/23, 11:17 AM Husain Aanis Khan: Constitutional Avoidance by Administrative Law Principles – Administrative Law in the Common Law World

them and the State Government. In other words, the relationship generated an
implicit promise (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2163255) to
students and their parents that the medium of instruction would be Hindi only and
would not suddenly switch to any other language. The order by the Department of
Education broke that promise and frustrated those legitimate expectations.

Conclusion

The purpose of the above discussion has not been to suggest that constitutional
remedies must always be avoided. If we tweak the facts of the present case slightly,
such that the language in question was a regional language which was protected by
Article 30 of the Indian Constitution, then giving a constitutional law remedy would
have been important for symbolic and expressive purposes. However, because the
group of students in this case was diverse and did not have any specific regional or
religious identity, the Article 30 issue could have been avoided and the case better
dealt with using administrative law principles. Such an approach would still have
provided guidance to future decision makers on the importance of consulting
academic authorities before making major linguistic and educational policies.

Husain Aanis Khan is a Research Fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, New Delhi,
India.
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