Classifying Administrative Action: Legislative, Quasi-Judicial and Administrative
Chapter Ten
Syllabus topic 1, "Concepts and Agencies"
Pages 30 to 32 of 430
In one line
For fifty years an Indian court's first question was whether the act complained of was quasi-judicial, because everything else followed from the answer.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: administrative action was traditionally classified into legislative, quasi-judicial and purely administrative action; the principles of natural justice and the writs of certiorari and prohibition were confined to quasi-judicial action, so the classification decided both the procedure the authority owed and the remedy the citizen had.
Why this chapter comes before Kraipak
Because a reader who has never seen the classification cannot see what Kraipak destroyed. MU sets the question as "Whether Quasi-judicial and administrative actions are same or different", which is a question about a distinction, and an answer that has never stated the distinction is worth very little.
The three classes
Legislative action. Laying down a general rule for the future, binding on a class. No lis, no parties, no evidence. No hearing owed, and no certiorari.
Quasi-judicial action. An authority which is not a court determining a question affecting rights, on evidence, between competing contentions. The older definition required three elements: a lis or dispute between two or more parties, the presentation of the case by them, and a decision on the merits by the application of law to facts. Natural justice applied, and certiorari and prohibition lay.
Purely administrative action. Everything else: action taken on grounds of policy, expediency or convenience, where the authority is not required to decide a dispute but to do or refrain from doing something. No natural justice, no certiorari.
The old test: the superadded duty to act judicially
The phrase came from an English judgment of 1924 which said that certiorari lies where a body has legal authority to determine questions affecting the rights of subjects and has the duty to act judicially. Indian courts read the last words as a separate requirement: it was not enough that the decision affected rights; there had to be something in the statute imposing a duty to act judicially in addition. That is the "superadded duty" doctrine, and it is what kept most administrative action outside natural justice altogether.
The case that shows the doctrine at work
Province of Bombay v. Kusaldas S. Advani, AIR 1950 SC 222.
Facts. Section 3 of the Bombay Land Requisition Ordinance 1947 allowed the Provincial Government, if in its opinion it was necessary or expedient to do so, to requisition any land for a public purpose. A flat in Bombay was requisitioned shortly after a refugee from Sind took an assignment of the tenancy and went into possession. He sought certiorari to quash the requisition.
Held. Certiorari lies wherever a body of persons having legal authority to determine questions affecting the rights of subjects, and having the duty to act judicially, acts in excess of that authority; it does not lie against an order which is administrative or ministerial in nature. On the construction of section 3, the existence of a public purpose was not a collateral fact to be objectively established but part of the subjective opinion the Government was authorised to form, so the requisition was an administrative act and certiorari did not lie.
Classifying Administrative Action: Legislative, Quasi-Judicial and Administrative
Why it matters here. It is the old law in its purest form. A man lost his home, the order was reviewed for nothing, and the reason was a classification.
What was wrong with the classification
It was circular. The court decided the class by asking whether natural justice was owed, and decided whether natural justice was owed by looking at the class.
It had no principle. Nothing in the nature of the two functions explained why an administrative order that ruins a man should be made without hearing him, while a quasi-judicial order of no consequence must be.
It rewarded drafting. A legislature that wished to avoid a hearing had only to write the power in subjective terms.
It ignored consequences. As the Court itself later said, an unjust decision in an administrative enquiry may have a more far-reaching effect than a decision in a quasi-judicial enquiry.
A worked example, then and now
An officer cancels a firm's registration under a control order without hearing it. Under the old law, the first question is whether the statute contains anything showing a duty to act judicially; if the section says the officer may cancel "if he is satisfied", the answer is no, the act is administrative, and the firm has no remedy on the ground of no hearing. Under the law after Kraipak, the question is whether the cancellation visits the firm with civil consequences; it plainly does, so fairness is owed, and the absence of a hearing is fatal unless the statute excludes it or an emergency justifies a post-decisional hearing.
Distinctions that still carry marks
| Legislative | Quasi-judicial | Purely administrative | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whom it affects | A class, in future | Named parties, on their facts | Named parties, but on policy |
| Evidence | None | Yes | Not necessarily |
| Hearing | No | Yes | After Kraipak, yes where civil consequences follow |
| Reasons | No | Yes | Ordinarily yes where rights are affected |
| Certiorari | No | Yes | Yes, since the superadded duty was abandoned |
What this does NOT mean
It does not mean the classification is dead. The legislative class survives and is decisive: no hearing is owed to a rule, which is why Shri Sitaram Sugar Co. Ltd. v. Union of India, AIR 1990 SC 1277, decided as it did.
Classifying Administrative Action: Legislative, Quasi-Judicial and Administrative
It does not mean the words quasi-judicial have disappeared. They are still used, for instance in the rule about recording reasons stated in S.N. Mukherjee v. Union of India, AIR 1990 SC 1984.
It does not mean every administrative act now attracts a hearing. What attracts a hearing is civil consequences, and [Exclusion of Natural Justice] sets out where even that is displaced.
Quick revision
Three classes: legislative, quasi-judicial and purely administrative. The old test for a quasi-judicial act was a lis, presentation of the case and a decision on law applied to facts, plus a superadded duty to act judicially. Natural justice, certiorari and prohibition were confined to the quasi-judicial class. Kusaldas Advani is the doctrine in operation, and it shows the cost. The classification was circular, unprincipled, defeated by drafting and blind to consequences, which is why Kraipak abandoned it as a gateway while leaving the legislative class intact.
Test yourself
1. State the three elements of the old definition of a quasi-judicial act. A lis between parties, presentation of their cases, and a decision on the merits by applying law to facts, with a superadded duty to act judicially.
2. Why did Kusaldas Advani fail? Because on the construction of section 3 the public purpose was part of the Government's subjective opinion, so the requisition was administrative and certiorari, being confined to judicial and quasi-judicial acts, did not lie.
3. Which part of the old classification survives untouched? The legislative class. Legislative action attracts no hearing to individuals, and that is still the law.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.