The Writ of Mandamus

In one line

Mandamus is the writ that makes a public authority do the thing the law obliges it to do.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: mandamus, meaning we command, is a writ issued to a person, corporation, inferior tribunal or public authority commanding the performance of a public duty imposed by the Constitution, a statute or the common law, where the applicant has a legal right to that performance and has demanded it and been refused.

Why the law has this at all

Certiorari and prohibition answer excess. Mandamus answers inaction, and inaction is the commonest administrative wrong there is. An application that is never decided, a pension that is never sanctioned, a statutory duty that is never discharged: none of those produces an order that can be quashed, because no order exists. Mandamus is the remedy that fits.

The conditions, in the words of the leading case

Praga Tools Corporation v. C.A. Imanual, AIR 1969 SC 1306.

Facts. The appellant was a company registered under the Companies Act in which the Union Government held fifty-six per cent and the Andhra Pradesh Government thirty-two per cent of the shares. It had settled with its workmen's union not to retrench during a period of industrial truce and then made a further agreement permitting retrenchment. The workmen sought a mandamus under Article 226 to restrain the company from acting on the later agreement.

Held. Mandamus did not lie. The condition precedent to the issue of a mandamus is that there is in the applicant a legal right to the performance of a legal duty by the person against whom it is sought. An order of mandamus is in form a command directed to a person, corporation or inferior tribunal requiring him or them to do a particular thing which appertains to his or their office and is in the nature of a public duty. It is not necessary that the person on whom the statutory duty is imposed be a public official or an official body; a mandamus can issue to an official of a society to compel him to carry out the terms of the statute under which the society is constituted, and to companies or corporations to carry out duties placed on them by the statutes governing them. But it will not issue to enforce an obligation arising purely out of a contract, and government shareholding does not convert a contractual obligation into a public duty.

Why it matters here. It states the conditions and it draws the boundary: mandamus is about a public duty, not about a bargain.

The five conditions in a list

1. A legal right in the applicant, not a mere hope or interest.
2. A corresponding legal duty in the respondent, imposed by the Constitution, a statute, statutory rules or the common law.
3. The duty must be public in character. A duty arising purely from contract is not enough.
4. A demand and a refusal, express or to be inferred from conduct. The rule exists so that the authority is given a chance to comply, and it is dispensed with where a demand would plainly be futile.
5. No other equally efficacious remedy, which is the alternative remedy rule of [Alternative Remedies].