LLM Group 1 Constitutional and Administrative Law Administrative Process and Judicial Control 2019 Question Paper with Solutions

For full marks, cover: what "the administrative process" means, which is broader than administrative law and is the point of the question; the reasons for its growth in common law countries; the four kinds of function the administration performs, rule making, adjudication, discretionary decision and ministerial action, which is the organising structure of the answer; the constitutional difficulty each creates in a system built on the separation of powers; the mechanisms of control that have grown up in response; and a critical assessment of where the process now stands, including the tribunal question.

What the administrative process is

The administrative process is the whole activity by which the modern State carries its policies into effect: making rules, granting and refusing licences, allocating benefits, inspecting, investigating, adjudicating disputes and enforcing decisions. It is wider than administrative law, which is the body of principle by which that activity is controlled. The distinction matters because a question on the process asks what the administration does; a question on administrative law asks how the courts check it.

Function one: rule making

The administration legislates. Rules, regulations, byelaws, orders and notifications are made under statutory powers, and they bind exactly as a statute does. Article 13(3)(a) treats them as "law". The volume is enormous: in any modern system the quantity of delegated legislation vastly exceeds the quantity of primary legislation.

The constitutional difficulty is that legislative power belongs to the legislature. The common law answer is the doctrine of excessive delegation: the legislature must lay down the policy and the standard and may leave only details to the delegate. In re Delhi Laws Act, 1912, AIR 1951 SC 332, held that the power to extend an existing law with modifications not touching its essential features is delegable but that the power to repeal or amend a law is an essential legislative function and is not; Hamdard Dawakhana v. Union of India, AIR 1960 SC 554, struck down a provision allowing the executive to add "any other disease or condition" to a list of prohibited advertisement subjects, because it supplied no standard at all.

The common law answer has two parts. The first is to require natural justice of them: after Ridge v. Baldwin, [1964] AC 40, and A.K. Kraipak v. Union of India, (1969) 2 SCC 262, the duty to act fairly attaches to any power to affect rights, and the earlier requirement of a superadded duty to act judicially is gone. The second is to keep them under the supervision of the ordinary courts: in L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India, (1997) 3 SCC 261, a seven judge Bench held that judicial review under Articles 226, 227 and 32 is part of the basic structure, struck down Article 323A(2)(d) and Article 323B(3)(d) so far as they excluded it, and held that tribunal decisions are subject to scrutiny by a Division Bench of the High Court. The most recent chapter is Madras Bar Association v. Union of India, 2025 INSC 1330, decided on 19 November 2025, which struck down provisions of the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021, that gave the executive control over the appointment, tenure and service conditions of tribunal members, held that re-enacting provisions already struck down is an impermissible legislative override, and directed the Union to establish a National Tribunals Commission within four months.

Function four: ministerial and investigative action

A great deal of administration involves no judgment at all: registering, recording, collecting, inspecting, issuing. These attract mandamus where a duty is refused, and little else. Investigation is a distinct category and is more troublesome, because an investigative decision affects reputation and liberty before any adjudication: Barium Chemicals Ltd. v. Company Law Board, AIR 1967 SC 295, holds that although the formation of the requisite opinion is subjective, the existence of the circumstances on which the opinion is founded is a condition precedent and is justiciable.

The scope of control: the mechanisms

The classical objection, and the reply

The nineteenth century view was that the administrative process ought not to exist at all, and Dicey is its author. In An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (1885) he gave the rule of law three meanings: the absence of arbitrary power, so that a man may be punished only for a distinct breach of law established before the ordinary courts; equality before the law, all classes being subject to the ordinary law administered by the ordinary courts, which he framed expressly to exclude the French droit administratif; and the proposition that in England the constitution is the result of the ordinary law rather than its source. On that view a body with power to make rules, decide disputes and enforce its own decisions is a contradiction of each of the three.

The Indian statutory apparatus of the process

An Indian answer should show that the process is not an abstraction but a set of identifiable institutions. Rule making runs through the General Clauses Act, 1897, which supplies the rules for the exercise of statutory powers, and through the laying provisions of individual Acts. Adjudication runs through the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, the Companies Act, 2013, with the National Company Law Tribunal, the Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992, with the Securities Appellate Tribunal, and the Electricity Act, 2003. Regulation runs through the Reserve Bank, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the Competition Commission and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, each of which makes binding regulations, adjudicates disputes and enforces its own orders in the same institution.

Conclusion. The administrative process in common law countries is the whole apparatus by which the modern State gives effect to policy, and its nature is that it combines, in one set of hands, functions the classical separation of powers assigned to three. It legislates by rule making, and is controlled by the doctrine of excessive delegation from In re Delhi Laws Act and Hamdard Dawakhana. It adjudicates through tribunals and statutory authorities, and is controlled by the extension of natural justice to administrative action after Ridge v. Baldwin and Kraipak, and by the constitutional supervision that L. Chandra Kumar placed beyond legislative reach. It decides discretionary questions, and is controlled by a body of doctrine that examines whether the discretion was exercised and whether it was abused, without substituting the court's own choice. And it acts ministerially and investigates, where mandamus and the jurisdictional fact doctrine of Barium Chemicals apply. The scope of the process is therefore as wide as the functions of the State, and the scope of its control is as wide as the courts' willingness to insist that every one of those functions be exercised for a purpose, on relevant material, and for reasons that can be seen.