Delegated Legislation

What is Delegated Legislation?

Delegated legislation refers to laws made by someone other than the main legislative body, like parliament, but with its permission. Parliament creates a parent Act, which sets the framework, and delegates the details to other authorities, such as government ministers or local bodies. This is done to save time and address technical or local issues more efficiently.
For example, under the Factories Act, 1948, the government can make specific safety rules for workers. Parliament doesn’t handle every detail — it delegates those responsibilities.

Why it is Needed?

1. Saves Time: Parliament can’t handle every little rule. Delegation allows it to focus on big issues.
2. Expertise: Specialists can create detailed rules, like environmental scientists drafting pollution control measures.
3. Flexibility: It’s faster to update or create rule for emergencies, like during a pandemic.
4. Local Needs: Local authorities can make rules suited to their region, like traffic regulations in a city.

Types of Delegated Legislation

1. Statutory Instruments: Rules made by government ministers. For example, taxation rules under the Income Tax Act.
2. By-Laws: laws made by local authorities, like municipalities managing street cleaning rules.
3. Orders in Council: Emergency rules issued by a high authority like the President. For example, rules under the Disaster Management Act during COVID-19.

How is it Controlled?

1. Parliamentary Control: Parliament reviews the rules to ensure they follow the parent Act.
   – Negative Resolution: rules pass unless someone objects
   – Affirmative Resolution: rules need explicit approval
2. Judicial Control: Courts can strike down rules if they exceed the powers given by the Parent Act (substantive ultra vires) or if they don’t follow proper procedure (procedural ultra vires). For instance, in Chintaman Rao vs state of MP(1950), the court invalidated a rule for overstepping its boundaries.
3. Public Awareness: rules must be published in the official gazette for transparency.

Reason for its Growth

• a. Reduces the pressure on Parliament: Parliament is the law-making body of the country. They are constantly busy with passing bills and acts for the betterment of the country. Hence, it will be difficult for the Parliament to make laws in details.
• b. Flexible: Parliament follows certain procedure in the formulation of any laws this makes the law-making procedure rigid. Whereas, the delegated legislation does not have any lengthy procedure and it will be helpful in making speedy decisions.
• c. Speedy decisions: It takes a lot of time by taking opinions of each and every members of the Parliament. Hence, an issue that requires immediate actions is efficiently dealt with by the delegated legislation.
• d. Expertise opinion and knowledge: Legislators may not have the expertise to draft detailed technical regulations, so this task is handed over to specialists or departments. Example – pollution control norms under the Environment Protection Act, 1986 require inputs from environmental scientists.
• e. Meeting needs of unforeseeable contingencies or emergency: Emergency situations are those situations which require immediate actions to be taken without any delay. Delegated legislation helps in taking decisions immediately sue to its flexibility. 
• f. Direct contact with the people: Executives are those who are in direct contact with the citizens and they know the problems faced by people. Therefore, they can form laws that will help in eliminating the problems faced by them.

Criticism for growth of Delegated Legislation

• a. Chance of Arbitrariness: There is high chance of the delegated legislation will violate its power and try to control in an arbitrary manner. This will go against the rights and duties enshrined in the Constitution.
• b. Absence of discussion: There is an absence of discussion of between the delegated legislation as compared to the discussion held in the parliament by the MPs.
• c. Absence of transparency to the public: The public is not informed about the acts formulated by the delegated legislation. People are not aware of what is been done. There is an absolute absence of transparency in the formulation of law.
• d. Absence of balance of power: The theory of separation of power is violated under this delegation. The executive is given more power through delegated legislation. It is having power to make laws and executive them as well. 

Case Laws

In re Delhi Laws Act

Facts: The Delhi Laws Act of 1912, the Ajmer-Merwara Act of 1947, and the Part C States (Laws) Act of 1950 provided the Indian government with the authority to extend existing provincial laws to Delhi, Ajmer-Merwara, and various Part C states, with appropriate modifications. Using this authority, the Governor-General, via notifications under the Delhi Laws Act of 1912, applied laws such as the U.P. General Clauses Act of 1904 and the U.P. Municipalities Act of 1916 to Delhi. The central legal question that arose was whether this delegation of legislative power through executive orders was constitutionally valid. This prompted the President to seek the Supreme Court’s opinion under Article 143 of the Indian Constitution.
Issue: Whether the delegation of legislative authority to the executive under the Delhi Laws Act, 1912, was within Constitutional limits?
Whether the powers delegated to the government under the Delhi Laws Act, 1912, Ajmer-Merwara Act, and Part C States (Laws) Act, 1950, were consistent with the Indian Constitution?
Judgement: The Supreme Court, in a majority ruling, upheld the Delhi Laws Act of 1912, the Ajmer-Merwara Act of 1947, and the Part C States (Laws) Act of 1950. However, the Court placed restrictions on the extent to which legislative powers could be delegated. It concluded that while the legislature is permitted to delegate certain tasks to the executive branch, it cannot transfer its core legislative responsibilities, which include making laws and setting policy. The Court emphasized that the fundamental rights outlined in Part III of the Constitution serve as primary limitations on the legislative authority of both Parliament and state legislatures. It ruled that extending the jurisdiction of laws or applying existing laws with necessary modifications is constitutional; however, the executive is prohibited from repealing or creating new laws. Moreover, the legislature is required to establish clear guidelines to ensure that any delegated powers do not violate constitutional principles or governance standards.
Legislatures may delegate administrative or regulatory powers to the executive as long as they retain essential legislative functions and follow the principle of separation of powers. The ruling sought to strike a balance between the practical need for delegation and the constitutional principle that the legislature should retain its core legislative functions.

Lachmi Narain v. Union of India

Facts: The Part C States (Laws) Act of 1950, specifically Section 2, granted the Central Government the authority to extend laws from Part A states to Part C states, with suitable modifications. In 1951, the Central Government exercised this power to extend the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act of 1941 to Delhi, which at the time was designated as a Part C state. This involved modifying Section 6 of the Act, which initially required the government to provide at least three months’ notice before altering the list of tax-exempt goods. The 1951 notification also updated the original list of exempted goods.
After the States Reorganisation Act of 1956, the Part C States (Laws) Act of 1950 was renamed the Union Territories (Laws) Act of 1950. In 1957, the Central Government issued another notification that further amended the 1951 modification. Notably, this 1957 notification revised the notice period in Section 6(2) from “not less than 3 months” to “such previous notice as it considers reasonable.”
In 1959, Parliament enacted the Bengal (Sales Tax) (Delhi Amendment) Act, which amended various sections of the Bengal Act but left Section 6 unchanged. Subsequently, notifications were issued that granted and then rescinded sales tax exemptions on various goods, with some withdrawals occurring with less than three months’ notice.
Dealers affected by these withdrawals challenged their validity in the Delhi High Court. A single judge determined that the 1957 modification of Section 6(2), which altered the notice period, was invalid, thereby invalidating the subsequent notifications that did not adhere to the original three-month notice requirement.
On appeal, the High Court reversed the single judge’s decision, contending that Parliament’s 1959 amendment, which did not modify Section 6, effectively ratified the shorter notice period. The aggrieved dealers then appealed to the Supreme Court, based on a certificate issued by the High Court under Article 133(1)(a) and (c) of the Constitution.
Issue: Whether notifications issued by Central Government time to time in relation to Bengal (Sales Tax) (Delhi Amendment) Act, 1951 purported exercise of its powers under Section 2 of the Union Territories (Laws) Act, 1950 ultra vires of Central Government?
Judgement: The Supreme Court clarified that the Central Government’s authority under Section 2 of the Union Territories (Laws) Act, 1950, primarily involves extending existing state laws to Union territories. The power to make “restrictions and modifications” is an integral part of this extension authority and cannot be exercised independently. The Court held that: 1. The power of modification is exhausted once the initial extension is made and cannot be used repeatedly. 2. Modifications must be necessary for the extension and should adapt the law to local conditions, rather than altering its essential features or legislative intent.
The 1957 notification, which changed the notice period in Section 6(2), was deemed invalid because it was not contemporaneous with the initial extension and exceeded the permissible scope of modifications. Consequently, the Court upheld the single judge’s ruling that the 1957 notification was beyond the Central Government’s authority.
Regarding the argument from the High Court’s appellate bench that the 1959 amendment act cured the notification’s invalidity, the Supreme Court found no basis for this claim. The 1959 act did not address Section 6(2) or the 1957 notification, and therefore, could not be interpreted as ratifying the changes made by that notification.
The Supreme Court determined that exemptions already present in the source Bengal Act were validly extended to Delhi, while the validity of later exemptions was not considered in this case. Crucially, the court held that the government could not justify unlawful withdrawals of exemptions by pointing to its own prior failure to adhere to mandatory notice requirements when granting those exemptions, reinforcing the principle that two wrongs do not make a right. Appeal allowed.

Darshan Lal Mehra v. Union of India

Facts: The origin of the lawsuit is due to the Nagar Mahapalika, Lucknow’s levying a “theatre tax” pursuant to the terms of Section 172(2) of the Uttar Pradesh Nagar Mahapalika Adhiniyam, 1959. For the first time, the tax was imposed at Rs. 5/- per theatre show on buildings with an annual rental value of Rupees 10,000/- and above, and at Rs. 3/- per show on the ones with rental value below Rs. 10,000/-. This proposal for imposing the theatre tax was given the go-ahead by the State Government, as per the procedure stipulated by the Act.
Thereafter, the Lucknow Nagar Mahapalika Theatre Tax Rules were drawn and implemented from 15 December 1965, with the imposition of the tax actually taking place on 1 June 1967. In due course, the rates of this tax were revised, and finally, a notice issued in the Uttar Pradesh Government Gazette increased the theatre tax to Rs. 25/- per performance for Class-I cinemas with an annual rental value of over Rs. 10,000/- and Rs. 20/- per performance for Class-II cinemas with a rental value of Rs. 10,000/- or below.
Aggrieved by this imposition and the subsequent enhancements in the tax rates, the cinema owners and lessees operating within Lucknow approached the Allahabad High Court by filing a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, challenging the validity of the tax. Their challenge, however, was unsuccessful, with a single judge of the High Court dismissing their petition. Even this judgment was met with an appeal to a Division Bench of the High Court being dismissed. Still, the owners/lessees of the cinemas invoked the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of India under Article 32 of the Constitution next, and wrote writ petitions for challenging the levying of the theatre tax, mainly arguing that Section 172(2) of the Act was unconstitutional.
The successive hikes in the tax rate indicate an increasing dependence by the local government on this source of income, which is likely to have compounded the apprehensions of the cinema owners over the financial fallout, culminating in the prolonged legal battle that went all the way to the country’s apex court. The fact that the petitioners took their case through several tiers of the judiciary attests to the perceived importance of the legal issues involved and their belief that the tax was levied in an unconstitutional fashion.
Issue: Whether this provision amounted to an unconstitutional delegation of essential legislative powers by the state legislature to the Nagar Palikas by empowering them to levy any of the taxes enumerated in the section?
Whether the classification of cinema houses based on their annual rental value for the purpose of determining the rate of theatre tax was arbitrary and, consequently, violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India, which guarantees equality before the law?
Judgement: The Court clarified that the authority granted to the Mahapalikas to levy taxes under Section 172(2) was specifically “for the purposes of this Act,” which itself details the Mahapalika’s responsibilities. This meant the taxing power was tied to their statutory duties, including providing civic amenities near cinemas. The process for setting tax rates involved public input and final approval by the State Government, and importantly, the tax rules were subject to review and potential modification by the State Legislature. Drawing upon earlier judgments like Gopal Narain v. State of Uttar Pradesh and The Western India Theatres Limited v. Municipal Corporation of the City of Poona, the Court reiterated that while essential legislative functions cannot be delegated, ancillary powers can be, especially with adequate guidelines and oversight mechanisms in place, consistent with the principles established in In re Delhi Laws Act, 1951. The Court found that the Uttar Pradesh Nagar Mahapalika Adhiniyam, 1959 provided sufficient safeguards, demonstrating an orderly empowerment of the local body under the control of the state government and legislature, rather than an abdication of legislative responsibility.
The Court found that empowering the Nagar Palikas to levy taxes was not an unconstitutional delegation of power. It also affirmed that classifying cinema houses based on their annual rental value for levying theatre tax was reasonable and did not violate Article 14 of the Constitution . This decision reinforced the principles governing the delegation of legislative powers to local authorities with adequate oversight and recognized annual rental value as a fair basis for tax classification for entertainment establishments. The Supreme Court dismissed the cinema owners’ petitions, upholding the constitutional validity of Section 172(2) of the Uttar Pradesh Nagar Mahapalika Adhiniyam, 1959.

Govindlal Chhaganlal Patel v. Agricultural Produce Market Committee 

Facts: Following an appeal, the Gujarat High Court reversed the acquittal granted by the Judicial Magistrate, First Class, Godhra, and convicted the appellant under Sections 36 and 8 of the Gujarat Agricultural Markets Act, 1964, imposing a Rs 10 fine. The initial acquittal resulted from the Magistrate’s finding that the notification concerning ginger’s inclusion as a regulated product was not proven to have been duly promulgated and published, as required by the Act. The appellant had been accused by an Inspector of Godhra Agricultural of purchasing ginger without a license in early 1969. The Act, specifically Sections 4 and 8, empowers the State Government to appoint a Director of Agricultural Marketing and Rural Finance and mandates licensing for operations within regulated market areas.
Issue: Did the failure to publish the notification in a local Gujarati newspaper invalidate the notification, thus making the purchase of ginger without a license legal?
Judgement: The Court held that adequate notification is essential to safeguard trade and mitigate penalties. The Gujarat Legislature’s strategic use of “shall” and divergence from the Bombay Act demonstrates a specific purpose, despite the fact that “shall” on its own, does not automatically equate to a mandatory provision.
Section 6(5) notifications must be published in a Gujarati newspaper for validity; improperly published notifications cannot support prosecution. The Supreme Court ruled that Section 6(5) notifications require publication in a Gujarati newspaper, invalidating those not properly published. The High Court’s decision was reversed.