Mumbai University Solved Question Papers
Administrative Law
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
LLB 3 years · Sem 3
May 2012 Examination
munotes.in
Mumbai
Mumbai University Solved Question Papers
Administrative Law
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
LLB 3 years · Sem 3
May 2012 Examination
munotes.in
Mumbai
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 question paper reproduced here is the paper as set by the University of Mumbai at the May 2012 examination.
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 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
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.
Answer in short, not more than two sentences 20 Marks
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
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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