BLS LLB 5 Years Sem 7 Administrative Law 2025-26 - ATKT 60/40 Question Paper with Solutions

Bias is a predisposition or leaning of the mind, arising from interest or prejudice, which prevents an authority from deciding a matter with an open mind. It offends the first rule of natural justice, nemo judex in causa sua, and the test is a real likelihood of bias, not proof of actual bias.

The types:

1. Pecuniary bias: any financial interest, however small, which disqualifies automatically. Dimes v. Grand Junction Canal (1852).
2. Personal bias: relationship, friendship, hostility or professional connection. A.K. Kraipak v. Union of India (1970).
3. Subject-matter or official bias: a general interest in the subject decided. Gullapalli Nageswara Rao v. APSRTC (1959).
4. Departmental or institutional bias: the same department prosecuting and deciding, tolerated unless there is a personal interest.
5. Pre-judgment of the issue: a mind closed before the hearing.

A laissez faire State, also called the police or negative State, confines itself to defence, law and order and the administration of justice, and leaves economic and social life alone. A welfare State assumes positive responsibility for the social and economic well-being of its people, providing education, health, housing, employment and social security and regulating economic activity.

Administrative discretion is the power of an authority to choose between courses of action, or to decide whether to act at all, where the law leaves the choice to its own judgment. Statutes confer it in words such as "if the Government is satisfied", "as it thinks fit", "reasonable cause" and "in the public interest".

An Ombudsman is an independent officer, appointed by and answerable to the legislature, who investigates complaints from citizens of maladministration by public authorities, reports his findings and recommends redress. The institution began in Sweden in 1809, and the word is Swedish for a representative or agent.

In India the counterparts are the Lokpal at the Centre and the Lokayukta in the States, under the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013, Maharashtra having created the first by its Act of 1971.

The red light theory is one of the two competing views of the function of administrative law, described by Harlow and Rawlings in Law and Administration. On this view the primary function of administrative law is to control the executive and to stop it exceeding its powers: the law is a red light which halts the administration, and the courts are the principal check.

Its intellectual parents are Dicey and the classical rule of law: government is a necessary evil, its powers are to be confined, and the citizen's protection lies in the ordinary courts.

2. Investigative commissions: the court appoints a commissioner, an advocate, a journalist or a district judge, to gather facts, since the petitioner has no access to evidence: Bandhua Mukti Morcha.
3. Non-adversarial procedure: the object is not to defeat the State but to secure compliance, so the State is treated as a partner.
4. Continuing mandamus: the court retains the matter and issues directions over time. Vineet Narain v. Union of India (1998), which produced the statutory Central Vigilance Commission; the Delhi vehicular pollution and forest conservation matters.
5. Compensation as a public law remedy: Rudal Shah v. State of Bihar (1983), fourteen years' illegal detention after acquittal; Nilabati Behera v. State of Orissa (1993), custodial death, where the Court held the remedy to be a public law remedy based on strict liability, distinct from the private law remedy in tort, and that sovereign immunity is no defence.

6. The criticism, and the answer to it. Activism is criticised as a breach of the separation of powers, as judicial legislation, as the taking of decisions on policy and resource allocation for which courts have neither the expertise nor the accountability, and, in its degenerate form, as judicial adventurism. PIL is criticised for having become publicity interest litigation and for its abuse by busybodies and by commercial rivals. The Supreme Court itself has acknowledged this: in State of Uttaranchal v. Balwant Singh Chaufal (2010) it laid down guidelines to prevent abuse, requiring courts to verify the credentials of the petitioner and the correctness of the contents, and to encourage genuine PIL while discouraging the rest. Costs are now imposed on frivolous petitioners.

3. Composition. A Central Vigilance Commissioner as chairperson and not more than two Vigilance Commissioners, appointed by the President on the recommendation of a committee of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Home Affairs and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. Term: four years or until the age of 65, whichever is earlier. Removal only by the President on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity after a reference to the Supreme Court, which is the same protection as a judge enjoys and is the guarantee of independence.

4. Functions and powers.

1. Superintendence over the vigilance administration of the ministries and departments of the Union, and over the CBI in Prevention of Corruption Act matters, with power to review the progress of investigations;
2. to inquire or cause an inquiry into a complaint that a public servant has committed an offence under that Act;
3. to tender advice on vigilance matters, first-stage advice before departmental proceedings are initiated and second-stage advice on the penalty;
4. the powers of a civil court for summoning witnesses, requiring documents and receiving evidence on affidavit;

1. What a corporation is. An artificial or juristic person created by law, having perpetual succession and a common seal, distinct from the natural persons composing it, and capable of holding property, contracting, and suing and being sued in its own name.

2. The first division: sole and aggregate.

1. A corporation sole is an office held in succession by a single natural person, the office being distinguished from its holder, so that property and rights vest in the office and pass to the successor. Examples: the President of India, the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Postmaster General.
2. A corporation aggregate consists of a number of persons united for a common purpose: a company, a municipal corporation, a university. This is the ordinary case.

3. The second division: by mode of creation.

1. Chartered corporations, created by royal charter. The East India Company is the great example; of no current importance in India.

4. Regulatory: the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the Competition Commission of India, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission;
5. Social service and welfare: State transport, housing and hospital corporations.

5. Why the classification matters in administrative law.

1. It fixes the source and limit of the powers. A statutory corporation may do only what its Act permits, so its acts and regulations can be attacked as ultra vires; a company's powers come from its memorandum.

1. Meaning. Proportionality requires that the measure adopted by an authority be no more than is necessary to achieve the object, and that the burden it imposes bear a reasonable relation to the benefit sought. In the familiar formulation, "you must not use a steam hammer to crack a nut if a nutcracker would do".

2. Origin. It comes from German administrative law (Verhaltnismassigkeit) and passed through the European Court of Justice and the European Convention on Human Rights into English law, where Lord Diplock in Council of Civil Service Unions v. Minister for the Civil Service (1985) suggested it might in time become a fourth ground of review alongside illegality, irrationality and procedural impropriety.

3. The four-part test, as settled in India by Modern Dental College and Research Centre v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2016) and K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017):

1. the measure must pursue a legitimate aim;
2. it must be rationally connected to that aim (suitability);

2. Quantum of punishment. Ranjit Thakur v. Union of India (1987): a soldier sentenced to rigorous imprisonment and dismissal for refusing to eat food; the punishment was held "strikingly disproportionate" and set aside, the Court holding that the doctrine of proportionality is part of judicial review and that a penalty which shocks the conscience is itself evidence of an arbitrary exercise of power. Bhagat Ram v. State of Himachal Pradesh (1983); Ex-Naik Sardar Singh v. Union of India (1991); and in industrial law Hind Construction and Engineering Co. v. Their Workmen (1965), where dismissal for a single day's absence was held excessive.

5. Proportionality and Wednesbury: the Indian division of labour. Om Kumar v. Union of India (2001) settled it:

1. where fundamental rights are affected, the court applies proportionality and acts as a primary reviewing authority, deciding for itself whether the balance was correctly struck;
2. where the challenge is to an ordinary administrative decision or to the quantum of punishment, the court applies Wednesbury, and interferes only if the decision or the penalty is so disproportionate as to shock the conscience, and then ordinarily remits the matter rather than substituting its own penalty.

1. Natural justice applies to the Principal. A college discharging a public function is amenable to Article 226: Andi Mukta Sadguru Trust v. V.R. Rudani (1989); and where it is "the State" under Article 12 it is bound by Article 14. A decision that keeps a student out of classes affects his career and attracts the duty to act fairly.
2. But the character of the order is decisive. Debarring a student till the pendency of the criminal case is not a finding of guilt and not a penalty. It is an interim preventive measure, made to protect the other students and to preserve order on the campus while the criminal court decides. It is settled that a prior hearing is not required for an interim protective measure such as a suspension pending inquiry, provided the measure is temporary, proportionate and followed by a decision within a reasonable time.
3. The gravity and the risk justify it. The allegation is of stabbing a fellow student on the campus. An institution that allowed the accused to attend classes alongside the victim would be failing in its duty to the victim and to every other student. The apprehension is not remote or fanciful.
4. On what grounds it could still be challenged.

11. The presumption of innocence. The pendency of a criminal case does not establish guilt, and the college cannot punish him on the strength of the prosecution alone. But the presumption of innocence governs conviction, not the assessment of risk, and a preventive order is about risk.
12. The examination question. Courts have generally required that a debarred student be allowed to appear at his examinations, since preventing him from doing so destroys a year and converts prevention into punishment. That is the relief a well-advised student would seek.

(b) Whether this decision can be covered under any of the exceptions to the Principles of Natural Justice? If yes, then Explain that Principle.

Yes. Two exceptions apply: interim preventive action, and emergency or urgency.

1. Interim or preventive measures. Where an order is provisional and is made to hold the position until a final decision, a prior hearing is not required. Suspension pending inquiry is the standard example, and it is not a punishment: it neither decides guilt nor imposes a penalty. The safeguard is not a prior hearing but the requirement that the final decision follow within a reasonable time, and that the person be heard at that stage.

5. "Useless formality", applied narrowly, since S.L. Kapoor v. Jagmohan (1980) holds that non-observance of natural justice is itself prejudice;
6. Purely administrative or contractual matters affecting no right;
7. Waiver, where the person participates without objection;
8. and, in service law, the second proviso to Article 311(2): Union of India v. Tulsiram Patel (1985).

1. The power exists. The Foreigners Act, 1946, by Section 3(2)(c), empowers the Central Government to make orders directing that a foreigner shall not remain in India, and the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 and the Foreigners Order supplement it. The power to expel a foreigner is an attribute of sovereignty and is very wide: Hans Muller of Nurenburg v. Superintendent, Presidency Jail, Calcutta (1955) held that the Government's power to expel foreigners is absolute and unfettered by the Constitution save as provided.
2. But the exercise of it is controlled. Article 21 applies to "any person" and not only to citizens, so a foreigner is entitled to the protection of life and personal liberty according to a procedure that is right, just and fair: Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978); National Human Rights Commission v. State of Arunachal Pradesh (1996), the Chakma refugees case, where the Court held that the State must protect the life and liberty of every human being within its territory. Article 14 likewise applies to any person and forbids arbitrary action.

5. In India the doctrine is an aspect of Article 14: Food Corporation of India v. Kamdhenu Cattle Feed Industries (1993). Union of India v. Hindustan Development Corporation (1993) holds that a legitimate expectation may be defeated by an overriding public interest, and the change of policy is then reviewed only on Wednesbury grounds; the Government must place material before the court, and cannot merely assert it.
6. Conclusion to write. The Government has the power to deport, but it must first give Mr. Qureshi the individual consideration it publicly promised. The order is liable to be quashed by certiorari, with a mandamus requiring his case to be considered on its merits before any fresh order. Quashing does not entitle him to remain: it entitles him to be heard.

(b) Which Doctrine is applicable to this case? Explain.

The doctrine of legitimate expectation.

1. Meaning. Where a public authority has made a clear and unambiguous promise, or has followed a regular and settled practice, a person affected may reasonably expect it to be honoured or continued, and that expectation may not be defeated without fairness.

6. The leading cases. Ng Yuen Shiu (1983), above; Council of Civil Service Unions v. Minister for the Civil Service (1985), the GCHQ case, where an expectation of consultation arose from settled practice but was overridden by national security; Food Corporation of India v. Kamdhenu Cattle Feed Industries (1993), locating the doctrine in Article 14; Union of India v. Hindustan Development Corporation (1993), on the public interest override and the Wednesbury standard of review; Punjab Communications Ltd. v. Union of India (1999) and Sethi Auto Service Station v. Delhi Development Authority (2009), confirming that it confers no enforceable right to the benefit.
7. Its limits. It cannot be founded on a promise that is ultra vires or contrary to law; it yields to an overriding public interest which the authority must justify on material; and it gives, ordinarily, only a hearing and not the benefit.
8. Its relation to promissory estoppel. Estoppel requires that the promisee has altered his position on the faith of the promise, and can secure the benefit itself: Motilal Padampat Sugar Mills v. State of Uttar Pradesh (1979). Legitimate expectation requires no alteration of position and ordinarily secures only the right to be heard. In practice a petitioner pleads both.

1. The facts of Hind Construction. The company allowed fourteen holidays in the year, and by an established practice a holiday falling on a Sunday was carried to the following day. Eleven workmen did not attend on 2 January, treating it as a holiday. The company's case was that they had been told that because of pressure of work 2 January would be a working day and a holiday would be given in lieu on a later day. They were charge-sheeted, an enquiry was held, and they were dismissed.
2. The holding. The Industrial Tribunal set aside the dismissals and ordered reinstatement with back wages except for the day of absence, and the Supreme Court upheld that. The absence could have been treated as leave without pay, or met with a warning or a fine, and it was impossible to think that any reasonable employer would have imposed the extreme punishment of dismissal on its entire permanent staff for a single day's absence in those circumstances.
3. The principle. Where the punishment is shockingly disproportionate to the misconduct, the tribunal or the court may interfere, and such a punishment may amount to victimisation or an unfair labour practice.

(b) Which Doctrine is applicable to this situation? Explain with relevant case laws.

The doctrine of proportionality.

1. Meaning. Proportionality requires that the measure adopted be no more than is necessary to achieve the object, and that the burden imposed bear a reasonable relation to the benefit sought. In the familiar formulation, "you must not use a steam hammer to crack a nut if a nutcracker would do".
2. Applied to punishment, it means that the penalty must fit the misconduct, and that a penalty which shocks the conscience is itself evidence that the power has been exercised arbitrarily.
3. The four-part test, from Modern Dental College v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2016) and K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017): a legitimate aim; a rational connection to it; necessity, in that no less restrictive alternative is available; and a fair balance.
4. The case law on punishment.
5. Hind Construction (1965), above: dismissal for a single day's absence, "no reasonable employer" would have imposed it.

9. Proportionality against Wednesbury. Wednesbury asks about the decision-maker: could any reasonable authority have decided this way? Proportionality asks about the decision: was this much interference needed to secure that much benefit? The second is the stricter test.
10. A related doctrine worth naming. The employer's action may also be attacked as an unfair labour practice under Schedule V of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 and under the MRTU and PULP Act, 1971 in Maharashtra, where discharge by way of victimisation or for patently false reasons is listed as such.

2. The constitutional provision. Article 300(1) permits the State to be sued "in the like cases" as the corresponding Province could have been sued before the Constitution, which carries the liability back through Section 176 of the Government of India Act, 1935 and Section 32 of the 1915 Act to Section 65 of the Government of India Act, 1858, and so to the liability of the East India Company.
3. The sovereign and non-sovereign test. Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. v. Secretary of State (1861): the State is not liable for acts done in the exercise of sovereign powers, but is liable for acts done in the conduct of undertakings which a private person might also carry on. Maintaining and driving a motor vehicle is of the second kind.
4. The holding in Vidyawati: the State of Rajasthan was held liable. The Court held that employing a driver to drive a car for the use of a civil servant is "in no sense" a sovereign function, and that a State carrying on many activities like an ordinary citizen cannot claim the immunity of a feudal monarch.

2. It was abolished in England by the Crown Proceedings Act, 1947, which made the Crown liable in tort like a private person.
3. In Vidyawati the Supreme Court held in terms that the maxim, founded on the personal position of a feudal sovereign, has no place in a republic with a written Constitution which by Article 300 expressly permits the State to be sued, and which runs railways, transport, factories and hospitals.
4. All that survives of the idea is the narrow sovereign function immunity, and Nagendra Rao and Challa Ramkrishna Reddy have cut that down almost to nothing.
5. On these facts the function was not sovereign at all, so the question of immunity does not arise.

For full marks, cover: the definition and forms; eight reasons for growth with illustrations; four heads of classification; the Delhi Laws Act test; then two lists, what may and what may not be delegated, with a case for each head.

1. Definition. Delegated legislation is law made by an executive or administrative authority under a power conferred by the legislature. Salmond: subordinate legislation "proceeds from any authority other than the sovereign power, and is therefore dependent for its continued existence and validity on some superior or supreme authority". Sir Cecil Carr: "a growing child called upon to relieve the parent of the strain of overwork".

Its forms are rules, regulations, bye-laws, orders, notifications, schemes and directions, and Indian statutes use the terms loosely.

2. Reasons for its growth.

1. By the authority that makes it: rules by the Government, regulations by a statutory corporation, bye-laws by a local authority;
2. By its nature: normal delegation, where the limits are clearly stated, and exceptional or exceptional-form delegation, which includes the power to modify an Act, to give a rule the force of an Act, or to remove difficulties (the Henry VIII clause);
3. Conditional or contingent legislation, where the law is complete and only its application is left to the executive, and which is not open to the objection of excessive delegation at all;
4. Sub-delegation, where the delegate delegates further, valid only if the parent Act authorises it: Agricultural Market Committee v. Shalimar Chemical Works (1997).

4. The test: In re Delhi Laws Act, 1912 (AIR 1951 SC 332). The Supreme Court held that the legislature cannot delegate its essential legislative function, which is the laying down of the policy of the law and its enactment into a binding rule of conduct; that having laid down the policy it may delegate the working out of details; and that the power to repeal or modify an existing law is in general beyond the permissible limit. The question in every case is therefore whether the parent Act supplies a policy and a standard.

1. The essential legislative function, the laying down of policy: Hamdard Dawakhana v. Union of India (1960), where a power to add "any other disease" to a statutory list with no standard was struck down; Ajoy Kumar Banerjee v. Union of India (1984);
2. The power to repeal an Act or modify it in its essential features: Delhi Laws Act;
3. The power to impose a tax: Article 265 requires that no tax be levied except by authority of law, though a rate within statutory limits may be fixed by the executive;
4. The power to create an offence and prescribe a punishment without legislative guidance as to the conduct penalised and the maximum penalty;
5. The power to give a rule retrospective effect where the Act is silent;
6. The power to oust the jurisdiction of the courts;
7. The power to make rules inconsistent with the parent Act or with the Constitution, delegated legislation being "law" under Article 13(3)(a): Air India v. Nergesh Meerza (1981);

For full marks, cover: the constitutional remedies, that is, the five writs under Articles 32 and 226; the ordinary or private-law remedies of suit, declaration, injunction and damages; the statutory and administrative remedies, appeal, revision and review; the institutional remedies, Lokpal, Central Vigilance Commission, Comptroller and Auditor General and the Right to Information Act; and the limitations on each.

A. Constitutional remedies: the writs.

Source. Article 32 empowers the Supreme Court to issue directions, orders or writs for the enforcement of fundamental rights only, and the right to move it is itself a fundamental right. Article 226 empowers every High Court to issue them for fundamental rights and for any other purpose, so its jurisdiction is wider. Article 227 gives the High Court a power of superintendence over all courts and tribunals in its territory, which is distinct from Article 226 and is exercised sparingly. Article 136 gives the Supreme Court special leave to appeal from any court or tribunal.

The five writs.

The compensation jurisdiction, a modern addition: Rudal Shah v. State of Bihar (1983) and Nilabati Behera v. State of Orissa (1993), where compensation for the violation of a fundamental right was held to be a public law remedy based on strict liability, distinct from the private law remedy in tort, and to which sovereign immunity is no defence; D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal (1997).

B. Ordinary or private-law remedies.

1. Suit for damages in tort against the State under Article 300, for the wrongs of its servants in non-sovereign functions: State of Rajasthan v. Vidyawati (1962); N. Nagendra Rao and Co. v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1994). The officer is personally liable in any event.
2. Suit on contract, subject to Article 299, with a claim in restitution under Section 70 of the Indian Contract Act where the formality was not complied with but the Government enjoyed the benefit: State of West Bengal v. B.K. Mondal and Sons (1962).
3. Declaration under Section 34 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963, that an order or a rule is void, useful where no consequential relief is needed.

3. the Comptroller and Auditor General under Article 148, and the parliamentary financial committees;
4. the Right to Information Act, 2005, which is a remedy in itself, because disclosure often secures redress without litigation;
5. National and State Human Rights Commissions, the National Commission for Women, the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, and sectoral regulators and ombudsmen such as the Banking Ombudsman and the Insurance Ombudsman;
6. Tribunals under Articles 323A and 323B, which are the first-instance forum in whole classes of dispute after L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India (1997).

E. The limitations on the judicial remedies. The court will refuse relief for laches; where there is an adequate alternative remedy; where disputed questions of fact require evidence; for suppression of material facts; where the matter is one of policy; where the petition is academic or infructuous; and where res judicata applies: Daryao v. State of Uttar Pradesh (1961), with constructive res judicata in Devilal Modi v. Sales Tax Officer (1965).

2. judge-made and uncodified in India: there is no Administrative Procedure Act, and natural justice, ultra vires and the control of discretion are entirely the creation of decided cases;
3. functional rather than conceptual, studying what agencies do rather than how they are labelled, which is why the judicial and administrative classification lost its force after A.K. Kraipak (1970);
4. dynamic, expanding with every new function the State assumes;
5. remedial, in that its content is largely a law of remedies; and
6. organised around a single idea, power and its control.

3. Scope. It covers:

1. the organisation and composition of administrative authorities, tribunals, commissions, corporations and local bodies;
2. delegated legislation and its parliamentary, procedural and judicial control;
3. administrative adjudication and tribunals under Articles 323A and 323B;
4. the principles of natural justice and the duty to act fairly;

5. administrative directions, circulars and departmental practice, which bind internally and may found a legitimate expectation; and
6. reports of committees, persuasive rather than binding: the Donoughmore Committee (1932) and the Franks Committee (1957) in England, and the Administrative Reforms Commissions of 1966 and 2005 in India.

5. Reasons for growth.

1. The change from the police State to the welfare State, under the Directive Principles. This is the first reason and every other follows from it.
2. Inadequacy of the legislature, which cannot make detailed law, producing delegated legislation.
3. Inadequacy of the ordinary courts, slow, costly and rigid, producing tribunals.
4. Technicality of modern administration, producing the expert regulator: the RBI, SEBI, TRAI and the Competition Commission.
5. Industrialisation, urbanisation and planning: acquisition, zoning, rationing, price control and licensing.
6. Emergency and crisis, from the Defence of India Rules to the rules made under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.

For full marks, cover: the meaning and origin; Dicey's three propositions and the criticism of each; the modern restatement; the references in the Indian Constitution, which the question asks for by name; six Indian judgments; and the departures.

1. Meaning and origin. The rule of law means that the State and every officer of it is subject to law; that power may be exercised only under and according to law; and that no person is above the law. The phrase renders the French la principe de legalite. Its ancestry is long: Bracton in the thirteenth century, and Sir Edward Coke in Dr. Bonham's Case (1610) and in his contests with James I, asserting that the King is under God and the law.

2. Dicey's three propositions, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (1885):

1. Supremacy of law, the absence of arbitrary power: no man may be punished except for a distinct breach of law established in the ordinary courts. "Wherever there is discretion there is room for arbitrariness."

2. The second rested on a misreading of droit administratif, whose control over the administration is in several respects stricter than the English courts'; and English law itself had special rules for public bodies.
3. The third is a description of English constitutional history, not a universal truth. The Indian arrangement is the reverse and is stronger: a right guaranteed by a written Constitution cannot be removed by an ordinary statute, while a right resting on judicial decision can.

4. The modern restatement. The International Commission of Jurists at Delhi, 1959, restated the rule of law as a dynamic concept, covering not only the safeguarding of civil and political rights but the creation of the social, economic and cultural conditions in which a person may develop his personality with dignity. This is the version that fits a welfare State and the Directive Principles.

5. References in the Indian Constitution.

1. the Preamble, resolving to secure justice, liberty and equality;
2. Article 13: laws inconsistent with the fundamental rights are void, which subordinates the legislature to the Constitution;

11. Articles 50, 124 to 147 and 214 to 231: the independence of the judiciary, without which the rule of law is a form of words;
12. Articles 309 to 311: the services, and the protection of the civil servant.

6. The Indian case law.

1. Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala (1973): the rule of law is part of the basic structure, beyond even the amending power.
2. Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain (1975): clause 4 of the 39th Amendment, which took the Prime Minister's election dispute out of every court, was struck down; a legislature cannot decide a particular dispute by declaring the result.
3. ADM Jabalpur v. Shivkant Shukla (1976): the majority held that during the Emergency, Article 21 being suspended, no habeas corpus petition lay. It is the low-water mark of the doctrine in India, and Justice H.R. Khanna's lone dissent, that the State has no power to deprive a person of life or liberty without the authority of law even in an emergency, is now the accepted position; the majority was expressly overruled in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017).

For full marks, cover: the meaning and the change in locus standi; the origin and the reasons for it; the procedural innovations with cases; then the role of the Supreme Court under subject heads with the leading cases; the criticism; and the safeguards the Court has itself laid down.

1. Meaning. Public interest litigation is litigation brought before a constitutional court not by the person whose right is infringed, but by a public-spirited citizen or organisation, for the enforcement of the rights of a person or a class who by reason of poverty, disability or a socially or economically disadvantaged position are unable to approach the court themselves. It is also called social action litigation.

3. Non-adversarial procedure: the object is compliance, not defeat of the State.
4. Continuing mandamus: the court retains the matter and monitors compliance: Vineet Narain v. Union of India (1998); the vehicular pollution and forest conservation matters.
5. Compensation as a public law remedy: Rudal Shah v. State of Bihar (1983), fourteen years' illegal detention; Nilabati Behera v. State of Orissa (1993), custodial death, holding the remedy to be based on strict liability and unanswerable by sovereign immunity.
6. Guidelines with the force of law until Parliament legislates: Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997).

5. The role of the Supreme Court as protector of rights, by subject.

1. Personal liberty and the criminal process. Hussainara Khatoon v. State of Bihar (1979): thousands of undertrials in Bihar had been in jail longer than the maximum sentence for their offence; the Court held the right to a speedy trial to be part of Article 21 and ordered their release. Sheela Barse v. State of Maharashtra (1983), women in custody. D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal (1997), the eleven custodial safeguards.

6. Food, health and education. People's Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India, the right to food and the midday meal scheme; Paschim Banga Khet Mazdoor Samity v. State of West Bengal (1996), emergency medical treatment; Unni Krishnan v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1993), education as part of Article 21, later Article 21A.
7. Accountability and probity in government. Vineet Narain v. Union of India (1998), which produced the statutory Central Vigilance Commission; Common Cause v. Union of India, on the arbitrary allotment of public largesse.

6. The criticism. That PIL breaches the separation of powers and amounts to judicial legislation; that courts decide questions of policy and resource allocation for which they have neither expertise nor accountability; that orders are often unenforceable and go unmonitored; that PIL has become publicity interest and private interest litigation, used by busybodies, by commercial rivals and for political ends; and that it has been used against the very poor whom it was created to protect, as in some eviction and street-vendor matters.