Construct a judicious orchestration of Principles of Natural Justice and its
exceptions in the parlance of Administrative Law and Administrative
adjudication.
ADMINISTRATIVE LAW 305
SUBMITTED BY: ASHI PANDEY
2ND YEAR, 3RD SEMESTER
UID: SF0122013
FACULTY IN CHARGE: MS. KANGKANA GOSWAMI
SUBMITTED ON: OCTOBER 30th, 2023
NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY AND JUDICIAL ACADEMY, ASSAM
Principles of natural justice directly means “natural law” or refers to “higher law of nature”
which lays down some basic postulates which is expected from the Administration to be
followed to ensure fairness, reasonableness, equality and equity. Natural justice is judge made
rules which checks or prevents administration from outsourcing its powers and causing
injustice in the wake of it. Natural justice applies over the procedure taken up by the
administration which can be firstly are out rightly written in the statute or secondly it is left to
the administration’s judgement to devise such procedure all the while maintaining that the
basic principles of natural justice are not getting breached. There are basically two principles
which together constitute as Principles of natural justice but they are not always applied to a
case together and what principles should be applied in what case depends to a great extent on
the facts and circumstances of the case which can differ as was held in Canara Bank v.
Debasis Das. The aforementioned two principles are:
‘Nemo judex in causa sua'. No one should be made a judge in his own cause, and the
rule against bias.
'Audi alteram partem' means to hear the other party, or no one should be condemned
unheard.
Rule against bias means a driving prejudice that can affect the judgement or the decision of
the judge leading to injustice caused by bias. This bias can take various forms depending on
the interests or prejudices of the judge but this doctrine only when it is shown that the judge
or the officer adjudicating any particular case has a personal interest or personal connection
or has personally acted in the current case and/or has already taken in a way which supports
his interests as was held in Crawford Bayley & Co. v. Union of India.
There are six types of bias:
1. Personal Bias; which gets established through some relationship between the
Deciding Authority and the parties to the case which affects him to give any decision
against any such party against whom they have a personal prejudice rendering
injustice. Mineral Development Corpn. Ltd. V. State of Bihar is a classic case of such
a bias.
2. Pecuniary Bias; or proprietary bias that can affect a Judge’s judgement when he has
vested monetary or financial interest in a case for example In England in the case of
R. v. Hendon Rural Distt. Council, Ex. P. Chorley where the court quashed the
planning commission’s decision solely because of the fact that one of the members of
the commission was an estate agent representing the applicant concerned in the
current case.
3. Subject Matter Bias; basically, means where the Deciding Officer is directly or
indirectly, involved in the subject matter of the case as was analysed in the case of R.
v. Deal Justices, Ex P. Curling.
4. Policy Notion Bias; is a presence of prejudice in the Deciding Officer’s mind arising
out of a preconceived policy notion which has also been forfeited in the classic case
of Franklin v. Minister of Town and Country Planning.
5. Preconceived Notion Bias; refers to the bias emerging in the Deciding Officer’s mind
unconsciously, out of an understanding that the person has had since birth for example
on the ground of ‘class’, ‘caste’ or ‘personality’.
6. Departmental Bias; this can emerge in the Deciding Officer’s mind if he has vested
interest in any such department against whom the case has been lodged which might
lead him to provide a judgement which does don’t lead to justice as was upheld in the
case of Hari K. Gawali v. Dy. Commissioner of Police.
This principle works in consonance with the second principle of natural justice, that is:
Audi Alteram Partem or the rule of fair hearing, which gives opportunity to the party
concerned to defend himself and also prevents the administration from working
unreasonably or arbitrarily. This right has to be maintained by maintain some duties, as
follows:
1. Right to notice; wherein the party has the right to be known about the case lodged
against them. The presence of sufficient reasons for the issuance of the notice was
recognised in State of Uttar Pradesh v. Vam Organic Chemicals Ltd.
2. Right to know the evidence; wherein the party will be shown all the evidence against
him to make the case so that he can rebut them with reason thereby defending himself
was stressed upon in Dhakeshwari Cotton Mills Ltd. v. CIT.
3. Right to oral hearing; wherein the adjudicating authority will provide the party with
an opportunity to defend them orally.
4. Right to cross examination; wherein both the parties can cross question one other to
maintain fairness and its importance was recognised in State of J&K v. Bakshi Gulam
Muhammed.
5. Right to legal representation; wherein the party has the right to get a lawyer to defend
them against such case against them.
6. Reasoned decision or speaking orders; are supposed to be given by the court showing
the reason mandated by constitution, law, natural justice which they had in mind
while deciding a case so that it can help the losing party in filling another appeal in
any higher court. Supreme court being the highest court does not have to provide any
such speaking orders as it is the uppermost court.
These above two principles along with exceptions which only refers mostly to the
inapplicability of the principle of ‘Audi Alteram Partem’ in exceptional cases where
nothing unfair can be deduced due to its non-applicability or where such non-application
will do more justice than its applicability as was upheld by the court in the case of
Avinash Nagra v. Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti. According to the constitution such
exclusion can be made subject to Article 14 and 21. The grounds for such exceptions are
as follows:
1. Emergency; when the situation needs immediate action remedial or preventive in
nature is where the right to fair hearing can be overlooked so as to maintain social
condition. In situation where important right have been violated, post-decisional
hearing otherwise pre-decisional hearing in a very basic form comes to rescue of
administration.
2. Where no right of the person is infringed; simply means if any statute or common law
doesn’t guarantee any right, application of natural law on any such law, shall not be
done. The same was established in J.R. Vohra vs India Export House Pvt. Ltd., still
any such action shall not be done arbitrarily by the authority according to East Coast
Railway v. Mahadev Appa Rao.
3. Statutory exception; where in if the statute provides for such procedure, then the
procedure must prevail. Ram Kumar Kashyap and Anr v. Union of India also held that
members of public service commission shall only be removed from the selection
committee because their relatives are appearing for interview, if there is someone to
replace them on that selection committee.
4. Necessity; a situation can be deemed as such when there is no other judge or deciding
authority to decide the case except for the one, in which case he will have to decide
the case or the administration would collapse. Charan Lal Sahu v. Union of India is an
classic precedent of such an exception.
5. Contractual arrangement; which is not considered as a quasi-judicial action or
administrative action does not come under the purview of natural justice so any
obligation is not attached to it as was held in State of Gujarat v. M. P. Shah Charitable
Trust.
6. Government policy decision; which is an executive function, does come under the
governance of Natural Justice except in case of such policy being unreasonable,
arbitrary or illegal as was held in the case of BALCO Employees’ Union v. Union of
India.
7. Legislative action; which is not made subject to natural law as these are just policy
made for a stratum of society and not just for an individual. Indian constitution
excludes Article 31(A), (B), (C) and 311(2) from the purview of natural law as a
matter of policy, but courts can discard any unreasonable or unfair policy under
Article 14 and 21. However in the case of subordinate legislation would be under the
duty to uphold these principles otherwise administrative action would follow.
In conclusion, the two principles of natural justice i.e., firstly Rule against Bias and secondly
Audi Alteram Partem can be seen as a way to supplement law and not to supplant it, which
along with its exception complements it by leaving no room for arbitrariness,
unreasonableness or injustice in administrative adjudication.