Mumbai University Solved Question Papers
Administrative Law
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
BLS LLB 5 Years · Sem 7
May 2012 Examination
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BLS LLB 5 Years Sem 7 Administrative Law May 2012 Question Paper with Solutions
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First published on munotes.in on 29 September 2026.
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Model answers written and edited by the munotes.in editorial desk.
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The University does not publish an official answer key for this paper. The answers in this volume are model answers, written to show how a full-mark answer is built. They are a study aid, not an authority on what an examiner marked.
The question paper reproduced here is the paper as set by the University of Mumbai at the May 2012 examination.
The answers in this volume state the law as it stands today, not as it stood when this paper was set, and in this subject that distinction is doing real work. On 19 November 2025 the Supreme Court struck down the core provisions of the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021 governing the appointment, tenure and conditions of service of tribunal members, so a textbook printed before that date states the position wrongly; every answer here on tribunals gives the Act as enacted and then what survives of it. The criminal statutes the older papers cite have also been replaced, so where a question is set on Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code the answer gives the corresponding section of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 alongside it, and the same is done for the Indian Evidence Act. Where a decision relied on in an older paper has since been overruled, most importantly ADM Jabalpur, the answer says so. A repeated question from an older paper can therefore be answered from these pages as they are written.
Contents
The questions below are the paper as the University of Mumbai set it at the May 2012 examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the May 2012 examination, reproduced as the University of Mumbai set them, in the order it set them. Nothing has been reworded, added or left out. Only the answers are ours. See the original question paper.
Duration 3 hours · Total marks 100 · 25 questions answered
Instructions printed on the paper
- N.B: 1. Attempt all questions. 2. Figures to the right indicate full marks.
How to use this volume
Solve the paper first, under exam conditions and against the clock. Then read the answers here and mark your own. Reading a solution before attempting the question feels productive and teaches very little, because recognising an answer is not the same as being able to write one.
Q.1
Answer in short, not more than two sentences 20 Marks
(a)What is the definition of Administrative Law given by "WADE".[2]
Answer
A.V. Dicey did not define administrative law as a branch of English law. He denied that England had any. That denial is the answer the question is looking for, and it must be explained rather than merely stated.
What Dicey meant by the term. He used "administrative law" to mean the French droit administratif, which he described as a system in which
- disputes between the citizen and the State are decided by separate administrative courts, not by the ordinary courts;
- the rules applied are judge-made rules of those courts, and not the ordinary law; and
- conflicts of jurisdiction are settled by a special court, the Tribunal des Conflits.
Why he rejected it. Because it offended his second postulate of the rule of law, equality before the law. He held that every person, whatever his rank or office, must be subject to the ordinary law administered by the ordinary courts, and that a separate law and separate courts for officials gave them a privileged position. In Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (1885) he wrote that administrative law, in the French sense, was unknown to the law of England.
Why he was wrong. The Conseil d'Etat is independent of the administration, its remedies are often wider and cheaper than the English ones, and its law of State liability is in several respects more favourable to the citizen. England itself later accepted administrative law, through the Crown Proceedings Act, 1947 and Ridge v. Baldwin [1964] AC 40. Dicey modified his own view in his later writing, in an article in the Law Quarterly Review in 1915.
Conclusion. Dicey's contribution to this subject is not a definition but a denial, and the denial rested on a misunderstanding of French law. The definitions an examiner will accept are Ivor Jennings's, that administrative law is the law relating to the administration, determining the organisation, powers and duties of administrative authorities, and Sir William Wade's, that it is the law relating to the control of governmental power.
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