Permanent executive must show way to elected bosses, says Hyderabad High Court
Hyderabad: Observing that it is the permanent executive which would have to advise and steer the political executive, Justice Sanjay Kumar of the Hyderabad High Court has advised the Chief Secretaries of AP and TS to issue necessary instructions to the executive to properly aid, assist and guide the political executive while discharging quasi-judicial functions.
The judge was allowing a petition by G.I. Estates, a mining company in Guntur district, challenging a memo issued by the AP government confirming the demand notice issued by the assistant director, mines and geology department, rejecting its revision petition.
As per the provisions of the Mines and Mineral Act, the minister for mines has the power to review the demand notices issued by the authorities of the department, in the capacity of revisionary authority.
During the course of the hearing, P. Roy Reddy, counsel for the petitioner, brought to the notice of the judge that in three cases where three different orders were passed by the revisionary authority and contended that there was no rationale in applying different standards to similarly situated persons.
After perusing the orders passed by revision authority, the judge said: “To put it mildly, the above stated records reveal a shocking state of affairs. Neither in the ‘Note Files’ nor in the ‘Orders’, did the revisionary authority deem it necessary to disclose the reasons as to why the penalty was reduced or waived in that particular case.”
The judge made it clear that when the revisionary authority was only exercising discretionary power and was not applying the letter of the law, it obviously had to indicate as to why discretion was being exercised in that particular manner.
The judge said that the revisionary authority shall not presume that they had inherent infinite autonomy under statute to decide the quantum of the penalty to be levied without disclosing the reasons.
The judge ruled that delegation of functions of revisionary authority to any of his subordinate for passing a ‘speaking order’ by supplementing reasons, after disposal of the revision, was wholly illegal.
Maintaining that this was a deplorable situation which requires to be remedied immediately, the judge observed that “it is the permanent executive which would have to advise and steer the political executive, the revisionary authority, in the right direction but it is manifest that there is patent failure in this regard. These observations would apply not only to the revisionary authority but to all other statutory authorities discharging their functions who need to be sensitised of their role and responsibility in the scheme of statutory adjudication.”
While remitting the matter to the revisionary authority for fresh consideration, the judge directed the registry to mark a copy of the order to the Chief Secretaries of both the states to issue necessary instructions to the executive.
