Conditional Legislation

In one line

Conditional legislation is a complete law whose commencement or application is left to somebody else, and Indian courts invented the label to save delegations that might otherwise have failed.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: conditional legislation is legislation which is complete in itself, the legislature having determined the policy and enacted the rule, but whose coming into force, extension to an area or application to a class is left to the determination of an external authority upon the existence of stated conditions; it is distinguished from delegated legislation, in which the delegate makes the rule itself.

The distinction

Delegated legislation. The legislature lays down the policy and the delegate fills in the details by making rules.

Conditional legislation. The legislature has made the rule; all that is left is to decide when or where it shall operate.

The consequence, on the older view, was that conditional legislation raised no question of excessive delegation at all, because nothing legislative had been handed over. That is why courts reached for the label.

The classic forms

Bringing an Act into force. A section saying the Act shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may by notification appoint.

Extending an Act to an area. The Government may by notification extend this Act to any district.

Applying an Act to a class. The Government may by notification apply this Chapter to any establishment employing more than fifty persons.

Withdrawing an exemption.

The limit: modification is not application

Rajnarain Singh v. Chairman, Patna Administration Committee, AIR 1954 SC 569.

Facts. Section 3(1)(f) of the Patna Administration Act 1915 allowed the Provincial Government to extend to Patna, with such restrictions and modifications as it thought fit, any section of the Bihar and Orissa Municipal Act 1922. A notification applied a taxation section to Patna after modifying it so as to remove the procedural safeguards the section itself contained.

Held. An executive authority can be authorised by statute to modify either existing or future laws, but not in any essential feature. Exactly what constitutes an essential feature cannot be enunciated in general terms, but it is clear that modification cannot include a change of policy. Essential legislative function consists in the determination of the legislative policy and its formulation as a binding rule of conduct. The modifications authorised are limited to local adjustments or changes of a minor character. The notification, having removed the safeguards, effected a change of policy and was ultra vires.

Why it matters here. It puts a usable boundary on the words restrictions and modifications, which appear in every extension provision, and it links conditional legislation to the essential legislative function test.