Wednesbury Principle and doctrine of Proportionality

 

        A well known, Wednesbury Principle or the Principle of Proportionality of the common law countries was adopted in India around the year 2000  to review administrative action.

                                    

        Wednesbury principle is that principle which means that statutory discretion cannot be exercised in a manner which can be held to unlawful. The principle of Wednesbury or principle of reasonableness arises where any administrative action of  the executive become arbitrary, and  such action will be subject to judicial review through judicial activism to bring reasonableness against the arbitrary action of the administration.

            Wednesbury Principle also known as the principle of reasonableness originated from a famous case, called Provincial Picture Houses Ltd. vs. Wednesbury Corporation (1948) in the  United Kingdom Court of Appeal.

            Lord Greene said in 1948 in the Wednesbury case that when a statute gave discretion to an administrator to take a decision, the scope of judicial review would remain limited. He said that interference was not permissible unless one or the other following conditions were satisfied namely –
(a)       the order was contrary to law; or
(b)       relevant factors were not considered; or
(c)       irrelevant factors were considered; or
(d)       the decision was one which no reasonable person could have taken.

            Lord Greene, in his judgment considered the extent of the Court’s power to intervene. In doing so, he provided the test for unreasonableness, which stated that whether the authority had acted, or reached a decision, in a manner so unreasonable that no reasonable authority could have come to it. This is known as the Wednesbury principle.
 
    APPLICABILITY OF WEDNESBURY PRINCIPLE IN INDIA .
           
        Wednesbury principle was adopted by many common law countries and India is such an example. In India Wednesbury principle is commonly known as principle of proportionality or principle of reasonableness. The test for principle of proportionality used in India is in wider form compared to principle of Wednesbury because of more case of human rights violation in India. The principle in India is a revised form of Wednesbury principle without altering it in substance i.e three step procedure of judicial review that it is in use in  the United Kingdom. The principle was first used in the case of Om Kumar vs. Union of India (2000).

            The Principle is attracted where it is shown that an authority exercising the discretion has take a decision which is devoid of plausible justification and any authority having reasonable persons could not have taken the said decision  Delhi Science Forum vs Union of India (1996).

        In the landmark decision given in the case of Omkumar vs. Union of India, AIR 2000 SC 3689, the Hon’ble Supreme Court accepted the concept of proportionality in India. However, a strange thing was discovered by the Supreme Court in this case which is the courts in India have been using the proportionality test since 1950 while deciding upon the validity of administrative actions relating to fundamental rights violation guaranteed under Article 19(1) of the Indian Constitution.

        The Supreme Court after reviewing concluded that in India, the decisions concerning administrative actions infringing the fundamental rights have always been determined on the basis of the proportionality test through it has never been expressly mentioned as such. Therefore the Court concluded that the executive action or the decision infringing Article 19 and 21 of the Indian constitution would be determined by the application of the doctrine of Proportionality whereas, in the case of the decisions in the violation of Article 14 of the Constitution. The Bench would adopt a primary view. The secondary review of the Wednesbury Principle would apply when a decision made by the executive is questioned on the ground of irrationality.

        However, there has been no progress or development seen with respect to proportionality doctrine in India even after so many years of Omkumar’s judgment. The only development that was seen was in the cases of Indian Airlines Ltd. vs Praba D. Kanan AIR 2007 SC 548  and the State of UP vs Sheo Shankar Lal Srivastava (2006) 3 SCC 276 where it was observed that “the doctrine of unreasonableness is giving way to the doctrine of proportionality.”    

  
        After the Omkumer’s case, it was in the case of Sandeep Subhash Parate vs State of Maharashtra (2006) 7 SCC 501, where the proportionality test was expressly adopted by the Supreme Court. In this case, a student was given admission into an engineering college based on his caste but the same was invalidated later on. However, he was allowed to complete his degree as per an interim order given by the High Court but consequently, he was denied the degree by the University. The High Court regarded the action of the college to be right but on appeal the Supreme Court “directed the university to grand him degree subject to the appellant making a payment of Rupees one lakh, to recompensate the state for the amount spend on imparting education to him as a reservation candidate.” However, the Supreme Court, in this case, failed to give reasons as to how it concluded upon the proportionality test.

CONCLUSION

        The scope of the Wednesbury principle is much wider than what is suggested by the term reasonableness. The principle means that the administrative law should be devoid of any  arbitrariness that no reasonable person could accept it. Every action or decision taken by a public authority who is entrusted with a statutory discretion must be well within the boundaries of law and while determining the lawfulness of such decisions it must be done with respect to the facts and circumstances of the case as ‘context’ is everything in law.

        The principle of Wednesbury connotes that if a decision is so unreasonable that no sensible authority could ever take it, such decisions are liable to be quashed through judicial review.