Administrative Law

Huth v. Clarke: 25 Q.B.D. 391, with approval:- “Delegation, as the word is generally used, does not
imply a parting with powers by the person who grants the delegation, but points rather to the conferring of an authority to do things which otherwise that person would have to do himself.”

(a) The appeal against the order of Registrar to the Single Judge amount to a delegator
examining the order passed by delegate and does not amount to an appeal under Code of Civil Procedure .(b) A letters patent appeal to DB against the order of single Judge from an order passed by Registrar is not barred under S. 100 A of CPC. (c) Delegation, as the word is generally used does not imply a parting with powers by the person who grants the delegation, but points rather to the conferring of an
authority to do things which otherwise that person would have to do himself.

Roop Chand v. State of Punjab: AIR 1963 SC 1503
considered the question whether an Order passed by a
delegate of the government was an order of the government
or the delegate, in the context of East Punjab Holdings
(Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, 1948
and held as under:
“11. The question then arises, when the Government
delegates its power, for example, to entertain and
decide an appeal under Section 21(4), to an officer
and the officer pursuant to such delegation hears the
appeal and makes an order, is the order an order of
the officer or of the Government? We think it must be
the order of the Government. The order is made
under a statutory power. It is the statute which creates
that power. The power can, therefore, be exercised
only in terms of the statute and not otherwise. In this
case the power is created by Section 21(4). That
section gives a power to the Government. It would
follow that an order made in exercise of that power will
be the order of the Government for no one else has
the right under the statute to exercise the power. No
doubt the Act enables the Government to delegate its
power but such a power when delegated remains the
power of the Government, for the Government can
only delegate the power given to it by the statute and
cannot create an independent power in the officer.
When the delegate exercises the power, he does so
for the Government. It is of interest to observe here
that Wills, J. said in Huth v. Clarke [LR (1890) 25
QBD 391] that “the word delegate means little more
than an agent”. An agent of course exercises no
powers of his own but only the powers of his principal.
Therefore, an order passed by an officer on delegation
to him under Section 41(1) of the power of the
Government under Section 21(4), is for the purposes of the Act, an order of the Government. If it were not
so and it were to be held that the order had been
made by the officer himself and was not an order of
the Government and of course it had to be one or the
other then we would have an order made by a person
on whom the Act did not confer any power to make it.
That would be an impossible situation. There can be
no order except as authorized by the Act. What is true
of Section 21(4) would be true of all other provisions
in the Act conferring powers on the Government
which can be delegated to an officer under Section
41(1). If we are wrong in the view that we have taken,
then in the case of an order made by an officer as
delegate of the Government’s power under Section
21(4) we would have an appeal entertained and
decided by one who had no power himself under the
Act to do either. Plainly, none of these things could be
done.