ADMINISTRATIVE LAW - MEANING:

Administrative law is the body of law that governs the activities of administrative agencies of the
government which comprise of rule making or legislation(when delegated to them by the
Legislature as and when the need be),adjudication(to pronounce decisions while giving
judgements on certain matters),implementation/enforcement of public policy.

SCOPE:
Administrative law determines the organization, powers and duties of administrative authorities.
The emphasis of Administrative Law is on procedures for formal adjudication based on the
principles of Natural Justice and for rule making.
The concept of Administrative Law is founded on the following principles:
a) Power is conferred on the administration by law
b) No power is absolute or uncontrolled howsoever broad the nature of the same might be.
c) There should be reasonable restrictions on exercise of such powers depending on the situation.
Though administrative law is as old as administration itself since they cannot exist separately,in
India the early signs/existence of administrative law could be found in the treatises written
during the reign of the Mauryas,Guptas,Mughals as well as East India Company(modern
administrative law).
It is based on the concept of rule of law that supports Natural Justice (to adjudicate based on
impartiality,unjustness and the prescribed laws and legal methods instead of arbitrariness and
abuse of official power on the part of govt. while serving the people and deciding cases brought
before its Tribunals,etc. Natural justice is basically applied in cases where there are no laws
prescribed,here the individual has to be given an opportunity to be heard and the judgement is to
be taken into consideration the particular facts and cases of the case and the judgement should be
free from bias). It is to prevent violation of people's rights by officials in power.

Administrative law specifies the rights and liabilities of private individuals in their dealings with
public officials and also specifies the procedures by which those rights and liabilities can be
enforced by those private individuals. It provides accountability and responsibility in the
administrative functioning. Also there are specified laws and rules and regulations that guide and
direct the internal administration relations like hierarchy,division of labour,etc.

SIGNIFICANCE:
It is very significant because if it did not exist then the very concept of having a democracy and a
government to work for the people would be self defeating because then there would be no
responsibility or accountability of the public officials to anybody and the administration would
run arbitrarily thus creating a huge monster that would eat up the very system. There would be an
upset in the balance in areas such as police law, international trade, manufacturing,
environmental, taxation, broadcasting, immigration, and transportation,etc.

REASONS FOR GROWTH:

1) Rise in complexity warranted handling of variable by the state authorities in order to provide
functioning in that area with necessary certainty and prescriptions.
2) Industrial revolution that resulted in the coming up of cities and new types of economic
transactions necessitated handling of affairs by govt in order to facilitate production,supply and
exchange of products and services.
3) Technological inventions and the increasing specialization has called for the increased need of
specialised handling of affairs by govt officials.
4) To allow necessary flexibility in the administrative system so that the challenges arising due to
social and economic factors could be addressed more adequately and efficiently.
5) To allow experimentation in order to ensure the application of best fit model in a given

circumstance
6) To allow participation of people in the administrative functioning to provide the necessary
authority to the administrative officials so that they can address the challenges arising due to
extraordinary circumstances or emergency situations.

DICEY ON ADMINISTRATIVE LAW:

Dicey supported Rule Of Law where everybody in a State everybody shall be subjected to some
common law and no official irrespective of his status and authority shall be kept outside the
purview of Rule Of Law. Thus,he rejected the idea of Administrative Law that was akin to Droit
Administratif or that which was being practised in France and other European countries where
there are seperate rules for administrative officials as he believed that such an arrangement
would lead to a perpetual risk of excessive application of authority with people having no
window to their grievance redressal.
The reason for this is that while analysing the concept of Administrative Law Dicey was always
thinking of French administrative law/rights system/Le Droit Admanistratif that existed under
Napoleon's Bonaparte's rule.

Droit Adminstratif practised the system of:

a) One rule for regulating the behaviour of individuals of society and one rule for regulating the
members of State and administration.
b) One court for members and individuals of the society and their private aspects and another
court for members of State and administration which is the administrative Court/Tribunals and
the apex of this court will be the Council D'Etat(very small division of the country in to
administrative divisions that are smaller than even counties). These are distinct and not
overlapping neither are superior or inferior to each other. They are equals. In case they ever
overlap then the final decision will be taken by a special court constituted for this purpose.
This was done so that administrative and State officials have more autonomy in dealing with
situations and contingencies that arise in execution of administrative duties and which would not
be easily understood by the normal law and courts.
Thus,Dicey believed that there should not be such a separation where there is one law that
governs the administrative and political officials( Administrative Law) and one that governs
society and its people(civil and criminal law) and advocated the rule of law as prevalent in UK
where everybody was equal in the eyes of law and only one common law governed each and
every individual. But,he was heavily criticised for this later as he did not take into account that
even the Crown in UK was immune from civil and criminal proceedings,thus,there was no rule
of law or equality here. Also he is criticised for not taking into account the future issues that
would arrive in administration due to modernisation and complexity like delegated
legislation,etc. Delegated legislation was very much a part of UK administrative setup as well as
the system of administrative adjudication through tribunals that was contrary to Dicey's rule of
law stating only one law making body which is the legislature and it being applied everywhere
universally and interpreted by the judicial courts as and when required for each and every one.
So,therefore UK was practising administrative law already.
Marx also criticised Dicey's rule of law concept by saying that it promotes inequality instead of
equality because if you treat underprivileged and poor equally with rich then there is going to be
a huge disparity that will only expand with time.
Modern day concept of rule of law has been given a very broad meaning by providing
opportunities to unequal people in order to equal themselves with the others like reservation,etc.

Law is created by the legislature or other legal institutions and is not to differentiate but enable
unequals to become equals and the last word on the law would be that of the Independent
judiciary.