How is the Delegated Legislation Controlled in India?

The prac­tice of conferring legislative powers upon administrative authorities though beneficial and necessary is also dangerous because of the pos­sibility of abuse of powers and other attendant evils.

There is consensus of opinion that proper precautions must be taken for ensuring proper exercise of such powers. Wider discretion is most likely to result in arbitrariness.

The exercise of delegated legislative powers must be properly circumscribed and vigilantly scrutinized by the Courts and the Legislature. The control by the Court and the Legis­lature is not by itself enough to ensure the advantage of the practice or to avoid the danger of its misuse. For the reason, there are certain other methods of control emerging in this field.

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The control of delegated legislation may be one or more of the following types:-

(1) Procedural;

(2) Parliamentary; and

(3) Judicial.

Judicial control can be divided into the following two classes:-

(i) Doctrine of ultra vires and

(ii) Use of prerogative writs.

Judicial control:

The British constitutional system vests the Parliament with absolute legislative authority and there are no limits whatever to the exercise of the power. Parliament can do everything and anything affecting the people and things. An act of the Parlia­ment is binding law and the court cannot in anyway interfere with it. There is no judicial review of legislative action by the Parliament.

The courts cannot invalidate an Act of the Parliament on the ground that it is against the so-called natural law or that it is tyrannical, un­reasonable, absurd or bad Acts of the Parliament can be modified and repealed only by another Act of Parliament. However, the Courts are not as helpless as it may appear.

They do play an important role in this field. No word is simple for interpretation and Courts are fre­quently called upon to interpret an Act of Parliament. The extent of this power depends upon the following:-

(a) Nature of the subject-matter covered by statute,

(b) Provision of the statute,

(c) Attitude of the Judge, and

(d) Legal presumptions applicable to the statute.