LLM Group 1 Constitutional and Administrative Law Administrative Process and Judicial Control 2015 Question Paper with Solutions

For full marks, cover: where these three sit in the modern classification of the grounds of review; then each in turn, and each with its own worked authority, because the examiner has set three heads and will look for three separate treatments; the distinction between mala fides in fact and in law, and why the first is almost never proved; the two tests for bias and which one India follows; that "oppressive" is a term of art from the law of byelaws and not a loose synonym for harsh; and the point that decides the third head, namely that proportionality has displaced Wednesbury only in part.

(a) Mala fides and bias

Mala fides means the exercise of a power for a purpose other than the one for which it was conferred. It splits in two. Malice in fact is personal ill will, spite or a dishonest motive in the officer. Malice in law requires no ill will at all: it is made out when a power conferred for one purpose is used for another, or on grounds the statute does not permit, and it is by far the commoner ground because it can be proved from the record.

The leading Indian authority on malice in fact is S. Pratap Singh v. State of Punjab, AIR 1964 SC 72. A civil surgeon was placed under suspension and departmental proceedings were begun against him. The record showed that the real reason was the Chief Minister's displeasure, the officer having refused to accommodate a relative, and that the ostensible ground of misconduct was a pretext. The Supreme Court set the order aside, holding that where a power is exercised to satisfy a private grudge the exercise is a fraud on the statute however regular it looks. The case is cited because proof succeeded, which is rare: the personal motive was documented.

Bias is a different ground with a different rationale. It rests on the maxim nemo judex in causa sua, no one may be a judge in his own cause, and its object is not to punish a decision maker but to protect confidence in the decision. The classic statement is Lord Hewart's in R v. Sussex Justices, ex parte McCarthy, [1924] 1 KB 256, that justice must not only be done but must manifestly be seen to be done, in a case where the clerk to the justices was a member of the firm acting for a party in a related civil claim, and had retired with the bench, even though he had in fact given no advice.

Bias takes three forms and each has its Indian illustration. Pecuniary bias, however slight, disqualifies automatically: in Dimes v. Grand Junction Canal, (1852) 3 HLC 759, the Lord Chancellor's decrees were set aside because he held shares in the company, although nobody suggested that his judgment had been affected. Personal bias covers relationship, hostility or friendship: in Manak Lal v. Dr. Prem Chand, AIR 1957 SC 425, the chairman of a Bar Council disciplinary tribunal had earlier appeared as counsel for the complainant, and the proceedings were quashed although no actual prejudice was shown. Official or subject matter bias covers a prior commitment to a view or a stake in the outcome, and is the head under which policy makers are most often challenged.

The modern authority, and the one to cite for currency, is Krishnadatt Awasthy v. State of M.P., 2025 INSC 126, decided on 29 January 2025. Fourteen Shiksha Karmi Grade III teachers had been selected in 1998 by a committee whose members were their own close relatives. The Collector set the appointments aside for nepotism, but did so without hearing the appointees. The Supreme Court had therefore to weigh the two limbs of natural justice against each other: bias in the making of the selection, and denial of hearing in the order undoing it. It held that audi alteram partem is the cornerstone of justice and that a defect at the initial stage cannot generally be cured at the appellate stage, since an authority hearing an appeal against a decision reached without hearing has no properly reasoned decision to review. The case is valuable in an answer because it shows the two maxims operating on opposite sides of the same dispute. The appeal succeeded and the appointments stood, the Court setting aside the ex parte cancellation. The case had reached three judges because a two judge Bench split on 4 April 2024, Maheshwari J. holding the selection vitiated by bias and Vishwanathan J. holding the cancellation vitiated by the denial of hearing, so it is a rare instance of the two limbs of natural justice pulling against each other, with the fair hearing limb prevailing.

Fifty years later the same idea was generalised in Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd. v. Wednesbury Corporation, [1948] 1 KB 223. A licensing authority permitted Sunday cinema on condition that no child under fifteen be admitted. The condition was upheld, but Lord Greene MR set out the framework: a decision is open to attack if the authority took into account matters it ought not to have, or failed to take into account matters it ought to have, or reached a conclusion so unreasonable that no reasonable authority could ever have come to it. The last of these became the irrationality ground, and it deliberately sets a high threshold, because the court is reviewing and not deciding.

The Indian courts have gone further than the English in one respect, because Article 14 supplies a constitutional route to the same conclusion. After E.P. Royappa and Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, (1978) 1 SCC 248, arbitrariness is itself a violation of Article 14, so an oppressive administrative decision may be struck down without asking whether it crosses the very high Wednesbury threshold. The practical consequence is that the Indian standard of review is more intrusive than the English one, and that "oppressive" and "arbitrary" tend to merge in the reports.

(c) Absence of proportionality

Proportionality asks whether the means adopted were excessive in relation to the object, and it is a more searching test than Wednesbury because it examines the balance struck rather than merely the outer limits of reason. Lord Diplock foresaw it in the GCHQ case; India adopted it in stages.

The structured four part test came in Modern Dental College and Research Centre v. State of M.P., (2016) 7 SCC 353. A measure limiting a right must pursue a legitimate aim; the means must be rationally connected to that aim; there must be no less restrictive alternative capable of achieving it as effectively; and the measure must strike a fair balance between the harm to the right and the public benefit. Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, (2017) 10 SCC 1, adopted the same structure for privacy, and Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, (2020) 3 SCC 637, applied it to the internet shutdown and communication restrictions in Jammu and Kashmir, holding that orders under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (now Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, in force from 1 July 2024) and under the telecom suspension rules must be published, must be reasoned, must be the least restrictive measure and must be periodically reviewed.

Conclusion. The three heads set by this question are not alternative labels for the same complaint. Mala fides attacks the purpose for which the power was used, and it succeeds far more often in its objective form, malice in law, than in its personal form, as Pratap Singh and Royappa read together demonstrate. Bias attacks the impartiality of the decision maker, is tested by reasonable apprehension rather than proof of actual prejudice, and was applied on both sides of the same dispute as recently as Krishnadatt Awasthy in January 2025. An oppressive decision attacks the content of the decision, and its pedigree runs from Kruse v. Johnson through Wednesbury, tempered in India by the arbitrariness doctrine of Article 14, which gives our courts a lower threshold of intervention than the English courts have. Absence of proportionality attacks the balance between means and end, and after Om Kumar, Modern Dental College and Puttaswamy it is a primary standard where a fundamental right is restricted and a secondary one where a service penalty is challenged. Taken together they show the direction of travel in this branch of the law: from a narrow inquiry into whether the authority had the power at all, towards a structured examination of how the power was exercised, which is the whole subject matter of judicial control of the administrative process.