LLM Group 1 Constitutional and Administrative Law Administrative Process and Judicial Control 2025-26 Question Paper with Solutions

For full marks, cover: the definitions and why they differ, since the disagreement between Dicey, Wade, Jennings and Davis is itself the subject matter of the first limb; the reasons for the growth of the subject; the nature of administrative law, meaning what kind of law it is, judge made, public, procedural and largely uncodified; the scope, meaning the four questions it answers, which is the organising structure; its relationship with constitutional law, which every examiner expects; its sources in India; and a closing assessment of the direction it is taking.

The differences are not merely verbal, and they matter for an examination answer. Jennings' definition includes the organisation of the civil service, which is administration rather than law; Davis excludes much of what an Indian court does under Article 226; Wade's, which treats the subject as the law of the control of power, best fits the Indian position, where the courts and not the legislature have built most of it. The Indian Law Institute's working definition, that administrative law deals with the structure, powers and functions of the organs of administration, the limits of their powers, the methods and procedures observed in exercising them, the methods by which they are controlled, and the remedies available to a person aggrieved, is the most complete and is the one to reproduce.

The nature of administrative law

It is public law. It governs the relationship between the individual and the State in the exercise of public power, not the relationship between two private persons. That is why the writ jurisdiction under Article 226 runs against "any person or authority" performing a public duty, and why Binny Ltd. v. V. Sadasivan, (2005) 6 SCC 657, holds that a writ does not lie on a purely private contractual dispute even against a body that performs public functions in other respects.

It is largely judge made and uncodified. India has no general Administrative Procedure Act corresponding to the American statute of 1946. The principles of natural justice, the grounds of review, the doctrine of legitimate expectation and the standards of proportionality have all been developed case by case. The consequence is flexibility and, as a cost, uncertainty.

It is procedural before it is substantive. Its characteristic question is not whether the decision was right but whether the authority had the power, exercised it for the proper purpose, heard the person affected and gave reasons. Chief Constable of the North Wales Police v. Evans, [1982] 1 WLR 1155, states the point: review is concerned with the manner in which the decision was reached and is not an appeal.

Second, how is rule making controlled? Through the doctrine of excessive delegation, which requires the legislature to lay down the policy and standard and permits it to delegate only detail: In re Delhi Laws Act, 1912, AIR 1951 SC 332, holds that the power to repeal or amend a law is an essential legislative function that cannot be delegated, and Hamdard Dawakhana v. Union of India, AIR 1960 SC 554, struck down a provision permitting the executive to add "any other disease or condition" to a prohibited list because no standard guided the addition. Rules are further controlled as ultra vires the parent Act, as violating Part III under Article 13(3)(a), as manifestly arbitrary under Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) (P) Ltd. v. Union of India, (1985) 1 SCC 641, and for want of publication under Harla v. State of Rajasthan, AIR 1951 SC 467.

Fourth, how is discretion controlled? By the grounds of review: illegality, irrationality, procedural impropriety and proportionality, from Council of Civil Service Unions v. Minister for the Civil Service, [1985] AC 374, with the Indian addition of arbitrariness under Article 14 after E.P. Royappa v. State of Tamil Nadu, (1974) 4 SCC 3, where Bhagwati J. held that equality and arbitrariness are sworn enemies.

Administrative law and constitutional law

Every examiner expects this comparison and it should be stated as a difference of degree rather than of kind. Constitutional law describes the structure of the State, the distribution of powers between the three organs and between the Union and the States, and the fundamental rights. Administrative law describes the operation of one of those organs and the control of its power. Holland's metaphor is that constitutional law describes the State at rest and administrative law the State in motion; Maitland's, that constitutional law deals with structure and administrative law with function.

Where the subject is going

Three developments define the present direction and are worth a closing paragraph. The first is the movement from legality to proportionality: after Om Kumar v. Union of India, (2001) 2 SCC 386, Modern Dental College and Research Centre v. State of M.P., (2016) 7 SCC 353, and Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, (2020) 3 SCC 637, courts increasingly ask whether the means were excessive rather than merely whether the power existed, and and in Adarsh Sahkari Grih Nirman Swawlambi Society Ltd. v. State of Jharkhand, 2025 INSC 1389, decided on 5 December 2025, the Court struck down an executive memo requiring a recommendation the statute did not require, holding that an executive instruction cannot add a condition the legislature did not impose and that unnecessary and excessive requirements must be set aside as illegal.

The second is the growth of the regulatory State, in which a single institution makes rules, adjudicates disputes and enforces its own orders, which concentrates in one body the functions the separation of powers distributes among three and is the hardest current problem in the subject.

Conclusion. Administrative law has no settled definition because it grew as a response to a practical problem rather than as a system, and the definitions of Dicey, Jennings, Wade and Davis differ according to how much of the administration each writer thought the lawyer's business; Wade's, that it is the law relating to the control of governmental power, fits the Indian position best. Its nature is that it is public, largely judge made and uncodified, procedural rather than substantive, and heavily remedial. Its scope is fixed by the four questions it answers: how administrative power is classified, how rule making is controlled, how adjudication is controlled, and how discretion is controlled, and the Indian answers to those questions are found in In re Delhi Laws Act and Hamdard Dawakhana, in A.K. Kraipak and Maneka Gandhi, in Royappa and Om Kumar, and in L. Chandra Kumar. What distinguishes the Indian subject from the English is that its standards and its remedies are both constitutional, so that a failure of administrative fairness is not merely unlawful but unconstitutional, which is why its scope in this country is wider than any of the classical definitions allows for.