TMI Blog1966 (4) TMI 74X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 3(2)(b) to make an application to the conciliation officer for approval of the action taken by it. The petitioner accordingly made an application to the conciliation officer for approval of the order of discharge passed by the petitioner. The second respondent to whom notive of the application was issued contested the application on grounds which it is not necessary to mention for the purpose of the present decision. The conciliation officer by an order containned in a letter dated 6th March 1964 intimated to the petitioner that its action regarding discharge of the second respondent was not approved. Beyond stating that the action of discharge of the second respondent was not approved, the order did not give any reasons why the conciliation officer had decided not to approve petitioner's action of discharging the second respondent. The petitioner was aggrieved by the order made by the conciliation officer and it accordingly filed the present petition challenging the validity of the said order. 2. The petition originally came up for hearing before a Division Bench of this Court consisting of Bakshi and Thakor JJ. At the hearing before the Division Bench, five contentions wer ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... -judicial decisions and since neither of these two decisions was supported by any reasons, both these decisions were invalid. This ground of challenge was negatived by the Division Bench on the view that the functions discharged by the Collector and the Chief Controlling Revenue Authority were administrative and not quasi-judicial and therefore the premise on which the necessity for giving reasons was sought to be imported was lacking. But the Division Bench also proceeded to observe in a judgment given by me on behalf of the Division Bench: ..... neither principle nor authority requires that a quasi-judicial body giving its decision must give reasons in support of the decision. The only qualification to this rule is where an appeal is provided against the decision of the quasi-judicial body. In such a case the necessity of giving reasons in support of the decision is imported because unless reasons are given it would not be possible for the appellate authority to examine the correctness of the decision. But apart from such case, there is no obligation on a quasi judicial body to give reasons in support of the decision arrived at by it so long as the decision is reached after o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... her words, to give reasons in support of the impugned order. We will first examine the question on principles. 3. There are two strong and cogent reasons why we must insist that every quasi-judicial order must disclose reasons in support of it. The necessity of giving reasons flows as a necessary corollary from the rule of law which constitutes one of the basic principles of our constitutional set up. Our Constitution posts a welfare State in which every citizen must have justice - social, economic and political and in order to achieve the ideal of welfare State, the State has to perform several functions involving acts of interferences with the free and unrestricted exercise of private rights. The State is called upon to regulate and control the social and economic life of the citizen in order to establish socio-economic justice and remove the existing imbalance in the socio-economic structure. The State has, therefore, necessarily to entrust diverse functions to administrative authorities which involve making of orders and decisions and performance of acts affecting the rights of individual members of the public. In exericse of some of these functions, the administrative autho ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ecision taken in accordance with the rule of law. Now the necessity of giving reasons is one of the most important safeguards to ensure observance of the duty to act judicially. If the administrative officers can make orders without giving reasons, such power in the hands of unscrupulous or dishonest officers may turn out to be a potent weapon for abuse of power. But if reasons are required to be given for an order, it will be an effective restraint on such abuse as the order, if it discloses extraneous or irrelevant considerations or is arbitrary, will be subject to judicial scrutiny and correction. As observed by Subba Rao J., as he then was, in Madhya Pradesh Industries Ltd., v. Union of India, AIR 1966 SC 671, A speaking order will at its best be a reasonable and at its worst at least a plausible one . The condition to give reasons introduces clarity, checks the introduction of extraneous or, at any rate, minimises arbitrariness in the decision making process it gives satisfaction to the party against whom the order is made and guarantees consideration of all relevant factors and discharge of his functions by the officer in accordance with the requirement of law. We may in th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e given, it would not be possible for the High court or the Supreme Court exercising its power of judicial review to examine whether the administrative officer has made any error of law in making the order. It would be the easiest thing for an administrative officer to avoid judicial scrutiny and correction by omitting to give reasons in support of his order. The High Court and the Supreme Court would be powerless to interfere so as to keep the administrative officer within the limits of the law. The result would be that the power of judicial review would be stultified and no redress being available to the citizen, there would be insidious encouragement to arbitrariness and caprice. The power of judicial review is a necessary concomitant of the rule of law and if judicial review is to be made an effective instrument for maintenance of the rule of law, it is necessary that administrative officers discharging quasi-judicial functions must be required to give reasons in support of their orders so that they can be subject to judicial scrutiny and correction. 5. This has always been regarded as a most important reasons in the United States for insisting that quasi-judicial decisions ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... from Schwartz's Amercian Administrative Law quoted above, the American Courts have always insisted that administrative decisions should be speaking ones, that is, they must contain at least the findings upon which they are based and the reasons which have prevailed with them in introducing this requirement are the same two reasons which have found favour with us. It is also interesting to find that the administrative law in France has moved in the same directions. For a long time Conseil d'Etat consistently refused to require that the adminsitration should give reasons for its decisions in the absence of a statutory provision imposing that requirement. But in a decision rendered by it in 1950 Conseil d'Etat opened, in the words of one commentator, a first breach in the established jurisprudence under which in the absence of a legal text requiring it the decisions of the administrative authorities need not be reasoned ones and annulled an administrative decision in which no reasons were given. The Commissaire du gouvernment there advocated a bold departue from the prior case law and stated that the Conseil should require reasoned decision in every case in which the a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... icit in this decision the recognition of the possibility that a quasi-judicial authority may not make a speaking order. This being the position, the Donoughmore Committee on Ministers' powers in its report made in 1932 formulated the principle that a party is entitled to know the reasons for the decision, be it judicial or quasi-judicial and recommended acceptance of this principle as a principle of natural justice. Pursuant to this recommendation the British Parliament when it came to enact the Tribunals and Inquiries Act, 1958 introduced Section 12 in that Act which now expressly requires that in certain circumstances, the administrative tribunals specified in the First Schedule as also the Ministers holding a statutory inquiry must give reasons for the decision. Thus what the Courts failed to achieve by the process of judicial construction had to be set right by Parliamentary legislation. But what the Parliament did serves to emphasize the necessity of giving reasons in support of a quasi-judicial decision. 8. So much on principle. But quite apart from principle, there is in our view clear authority for the proposition that every quasi-judicial decision must be supported ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nt of money or pension under the provisions of the Act. They applied to the Deputy Commissioner who forwarded their applications to the State Government. These were rejected without any reasons being given therefor. The appellants filed a petition in the High Court of Madhya Pradesh under Article 226 for a writ of certiorari to quash the order of the State Government. On the petition being dismissed, the appellants preferred an appeal to the Supreme Court. One of the grounds of challenge before the Supreme Court was that the order of the State Government was invalid since the appellants had not been heard by the State Government before making the order and the order was not supported by any reasons. The Supreme Court upheld this ground of challenge observing: The next question is whether Government was in making the order of April 26, 1955? That order gives no reasons at all. The Act lays down upon the Government a duty which obviously must be performed in a judicial manner. The appellants do not seem to have been heard at all. The Act bars a suit and there is all the more reason that Government must deal with such cases in a quasi-judicial manner giving an opportunity to the c ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... order was impugned in that case was a tribunal within the meaning of Art. 136 and therefore subject to the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court under that Article and it was the existence of this right of appeal to the Supreme Court against the order of the Central Government which weighed with the Supreme Court in taking the view that the order of the Central Government required to be supported by reasons. The argument on behalf of the State was that the ratio of this decision was confined to a case of quasi-judicial authority which was a tribunal within the meaning of Article 136 and it had no application where an order made by a quasi-judicial authority other than a tribunal was in question. This argument is in our view not well founded. It ignores the true ratio of the Supreme Court decision. It is undoubtedly true that the Central Government was a tribunal within the meaning of Article 136 and the Supreme Court therefore emphasized the existence of a right of appeal against the decision of the Central Government under that Article but the reasoning on which the decision was based is applicable alike to a case of an administrative authority which is not a tribunal within ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... gned order was an interlocutory order. The impugned order was an order made on an application for approval of the action of discharge of the second respondent taken by the petitioner and this application had to be made under Section 33(2)(b) because conciliation proceedings were pending before the conciliation officer. Section 33(2)(b) places a ban on the employer from discharging any workman concerned in any industrial dispute during the pendency of conciliation officer unless on an application made by him, he obtains approval of the conciliation officer to the action of discharge taken by him. The object and purpose of placing this ban on the employer is clear. By imposing the ban, as observed by Gajendragadkar J., as he then was, in Punjab National Bank Ltd., v. All India Punjab National Bank Employee's Federation, AIR 1960 SC 160 at p. 161: . . . . S. 33 attempts to provide for the continuance and termination of the pending proceedings in a peaceful atmosphere undisturbed by any cause of friction between the employer and his employees. In substance it insists upon the maintenance of the status quo pending the disposal of the industrial dispute between the parties; neverthe ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... proceeding to the application. The application is made for the purpose of lifting the legislative ban impossed in the interest of industrial peace and the conciliator has to apply his mind to the relevant considerations for the purpose of deciding whether to lift the ban or not. We are, therefore, of the view that the order made under Section33(2)(b) is not an order of interlocutory character. This view which we are taking in support by the decision of the Supreme Court in Tata Iron and Steel Co. Ltd., v. S. N. Modak, AIR 1966 SC 380. Dealing with the question as to the nature of an application under Section 33(2), the Supreme Court pointed out in that case at page 383: As we have already indicated, the application of the appellant can, in a sense be treated as an incidental proceeding but it is a separate proceeding all the same, and in that sense, it will be governed by the provisions of S. 33(2) as an independent proceeding. It is not an interlocutory proceeding properly so called in its full sense and significance; it is a proceeding between the employer and his employee who was no doubt concerned with the main industrial dispute along with other employees; but it is nevert ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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