M. C. Chagla, C. J. - (1.)THIS is an appeal from a judgment of Mr. Justice Bhagwati by which he ordered a writ of certiorari to issue against respondent No.1, who is the Assistant Secretary to the Government of Bombay, Health and Local Government Department, the Province of Bombay, respondent No.2, and Mr. Vartak, a Minister of the Government of Bombay, formerly in charge of the Health and Local Government Department, respondent No.3. The material facts which led up to the order made by Mr. Justice Bhagwati may be briefly stated. One Abdul Hamid Ismail was, prior to January 29, 1948, the tenant of the first floor of a building known as "paradise" at Warden Road, Bombay, the landlord of which was one Dr. M. v. Vakil. On January 29, 1948, Ismail assigned his tenancy to the petitioner and two others, the son and brother's daughter's son of the petitioner. All the three assignees were refugees from Sind. On February 4, 1948, the petitioner went into possession of the flat. On February 26, 1948, the Government of Bombay issued an order requisitioning the flat. The order was issued under Section 3 of the Bombay Land Requistioning Ordinance, V of 1947, which had come into force on December 4, 1947. The order purported to be issued by order of the Governor of Bombay and was signed by P. V. Rao as Secretary to the Government of Bombay, Health and Local Government Department. On the same day Mr. Rao wrote to Dr. Vakil informing him that Government had allotted the premises to Mrs. C. Dayaram. Mrs. C. Dayaram is also a refugee from Sind. On February 27, 1948, the Government of Bombay, in exercise of the powers conferred upon them by Section 8 of the Ordinance, authorised Mr. A. J. Lalvani, an Inspector of the Health and Local Government Department, to take possession of the premises. On March 4, 1948, the petitioner filed a petition for a writ of certiorari and an order under Section 45 of the Specific Relief Act, 1877. On that petition an interim injunction was granted restraining the (government from obtaining post-session of the flat. Originally the petition was directed only against respondent No.1, but by a subsequent amendment the Province of Bombay and Mr. Vartak were brought on the record of the petition and an order was sought against them also. It is on this petition that Mr. Justice Bhagwati made the order from which this appeal is preferred.
(2.)A writ of certiorari can only be issued against an-inferior Court or against a person or persons who are required by law to act judicially or quasi-judicially. It is a high prerogative writ and its purpose is to prevent a judicial or quasi-judicial body from acting in excess of the jurisdiction conferred upon it by law or to see that in exercising its jurisdiction the body acts in conformity with principles of natural justice. Such a writ can never lie to correct executive or administrative acts. An executive or an administrative act may be illegal or ultra vires and a subject may challenge it in a Court of law, but he cannot challenge it by a writ of certiorari. The very basis and foundation of the writ is that the act complained of must be a judicial or a quasi-judicial act. The right to obtain a writ of certiorari is a very important and valuable right that the subject enjoys. It is by means of this writ that the subject can compel the judicial or quasi-judicial body to act within the four corners of its jurisdiction, and, as has been said by Lord Justice Brett in The Queen v. Local Government Board (1882) 10 Q. B. D. 309, the Court should not be chary of exercising its jurisdiction to issue writs of certiorari and prohibition and that "wherever the legislaure entrusts to any body of persons other than to the superior Courts the power of imposing an obligation upon individuals, the Courts ought to exercise as widely as they can the power of controlling those bodies of persons if those persons admittedly attempt to exercise powers beyond the powers given to them by Act of Parliament. "
Therefore, what we have to consider is whether the order passed by Government on February 26, 1948, requisitioning the premises which were in possession of the petitioner was a judicial or a quasi-judicial order. In order to determine the nature of the power conferred upon Government by the Ordinance, it is necessary to consider its nature, scope and effect, and in order to do so we must consider the scheme of the Ordinance which confers those powers. The Ordinance is entitled "an Ordinance provided for the requisition of land, for the continuance of requisition of land", and for certain other purposes. Section 3 empowers the Provincial Government to requisition any land for any public purpose if in its opinion it is necessary or expedient to do so. "land" is defined as including benefits to arise out of land and premises and all things attached to the earth or permanently fastened to the premises or things attached to the earth. It is not disputed that under this section the Government would, have the power to requisition the premises in question. Section 4 deals with vacant premises. What are vacant premises is defined and an obligation is cast upon the landlord to give intimation if any premises become vacant, and a landlord is precluded from letting vacant premises without the permission of Government before giving such intimation and for a period of one month from the date on which such intimation is given. Sub-section (4) empowers the Government to requisition vacant premises. Section 6 provides for the payment of compensation in respect of premises requisitioned after an inquiry has been held. Section 9 confers power upon Government to take possession of requisitioned; premises. Section 10 empowers the Government, with a view to carry out the purposes of the Ordinance, to require by order any person to furnish to such authority as may be specified in that order such information in his possession as may be relevant or material. Section 11 deals with publication and service of orders.

Going back to Section 3, with which we are concerned, the Legislature has left it to the Provincial Government to decide whether it is necessary or expedient to requisition any land. The opinion of the Government on this question is conclusive. But it is not enough that the Government should be of the opinion that it is necessary or expedient to requisition any land. It can only exercise its power to requisition provided the land is being requisitioned for any public purpose. What is a public purpose is not left to the opinion of the Government. It is an objective fact which has to be determined by Government before it can exercise its power. The very exercise of the power is made conditional upon the land being acquired for a public purpose. It was attempted to be argued that whether the purpose for which the Government wants to requisition land is a public purpose or not was also left to the opinion of the Government, and it was suggested that the expression "to do so" following upon "in the opinion of the Provincial Government it is necessary or expedient" covered not only the requisitioning of land, but also for any public purpose. In my opinion, that is not a proper construction of the expression "to do so. " "to do so" means to act in the manner following, and the act which is referred to is the act of requisitioning. For any public purpose does not describe the nature or character of the act, but describes the purposes for which the act is to be performed, and therefore "to do so" only refers to the act of requisitioning and not the purpose for which the land is to be requisitioned. It will therefore be seen that the Legislature has provided an important safeguard in favour of the subject and a powerful check on the power of Government by providing that Government can only exercise its discretion to requisition land provided in the first instance it comes to a decision that the land to be requisitioned is required for a public purpose. Therefore an order of requisition cannot be passed by Government merely going through a mental process as to whether it is necessary or expedient to requisition any particular land. Nor is it left to Government merely to form an opinion in such a manner and on such materials as they think proper. It is incumbent upon Government to decide objectively that the land is required for a public purpose. The element of determination and decision indisputably enters in the order of requisition to be made under Section 3 .Section 3 also circumscribes the jurisdiction of Government to make an order under that section, and the limits of Government's jurisdiction are that it is only when land is required for a public purpose that Government is entitled to exercise its power to requisition land.

(3.)VARIOUS authorities and many learned Judges have attempted to draw the line which demarcates an executive order from a judicial or quasi-judicial order. I shall presently deal with some of the authorities, but before I do so I would like to state what in my opinion is the true definition of a judicial or quasi-judicial act as a result of a review of the authorities that were cited at the Bar. In the first place, a duty must be cast by the Legislature upon the person or persons who is empowered to act to determine or decide some fact or facts. There must also be some Us or dispute resulting from there being two sides to the question he has to decide. There must be a proposal and an opposition. It must be necessary that he should have to weigh the pros and cons before he can come to a conclusion. He would also have to consider facts and circumstances bearing upon the subject. In other words, the duty cast must not only be to determine and decide a question, but there must also be a duty to determine or decide that fact judicially. If the determination or decision of the authority results in binding the subject so as to affect his right or impose a liability upon, him, and if the exercise of the power by the authority is made dependent by the Legislature upon a contingency or a condition, which condition or contingency is an objective fact to be established and not left to the opinion of the authority, then, in my opinion, the Court would come to the conclusion that there is a duty upon the authority not only to decide and determine but to decide and determine judicially. In the case before us it was open to the Legislature to have empowered the Government to affect the rights of the subject and to impose a liability upon him by a mere executive act of Government arrived at purely by subjective reasoning on the part of Government. The Legislature did not think fit to do so. It limited the power of Government and made it exercisable only upon the happening of a particular contingency, and that contingency was the existence of a public purpose. This, to my mind, clearly indicates an intention on the part of the Legislature not to subject the rights of citizens to executive orders to be issued by Government. The Legislature intended that Government could; only act within its limited jurisdiction, that jurisdiction being conditioned by land being required for a public purpose, and the Legislature equally intended that if the Government acted in excess of its jurisdiction, its action could be controlled and corrected by a writ of certiorari. There can be no doubt that there is a lis or dispute which the Provincial Government has to decide, the dispute being whether the subject should be deprived of his property or not. There are also two sides to the dispute. There is a proposal and opposition and there are pros and cons to be considered. The two sides are: The interest of the State which requires the property for a public purpose, and the rights of the subject who is being deprived of his property. It may be said that the Government cannot be constituted a Judge in its own cause because Government would be asked to adjudicate between itself and the subject, and what a dispute and an adjudication requires is two parties and an adjudicator different from and independent of the two parties. In my opinion, there is no reason why the Provincial Government or an executive officer cannot be constituted a Judge to decide questions arising between the State and the subject. The role that the Government or the executive officer has got to play under these circumstances is a judicial role and as such the Government or the executive officer is different from the State whose rights it has to consider as against the rights of the subject. I should further add that if there was any doubt as to whether an act to be done by a competent authority was a ministerial act or a judicial or quasi-judicial act, I would always give the benefit of the doubt to the subject because I would assume that if the Legislature confers power upon an authority to affect rights or impose liability upon subjects, the Legislature would not ordinarily confer such power without making the power exercisable judicially or qucrn-judicially. I would not assume that the Legislature would permit the rights of subjects to be affected and liability being imposed upon them without giving an opportunity to the subject to be heard in support of his own rights. I would therefore require a clear indication on the part of the Legislature that it not only conferred a power upon a competent authority to affect the rights of others and impose liability upon them, but also that the power it gave was so wide that it could be exercised without the duty of any judicial or quasil-judicial determination. In the case before us, far from there being any such indication on the part of the Legislature, I find that the intention of the Legislature is clear from the fact to which I have already referred, viz. that a condition precedent is laid down which has to be satisfied before the authority can exercise its power, and the existence of that condition precedent is left not to the opinion of Government but has to be established as a fact. It is also significant to note that there is a further clear indication by the Legislature that there is a duty cast upon the Provincial Government to act judicially or quasi-judicially by the power conferred by it under Section 10 to obtain information from the person whose land is to be requisitioned. It may be suggested that this is merely an enabling section and casts no duty upon the Government or confers no right upon the subject. But in my opinion, this section must be read as having a compelling force and also as being a power coupled with a duty. We must read Section 10 along with Section 3, and when we find that in Section 3 public purpose is to be determined by Government and when we find in Section 10 that information may be obtained for the purposes of the Ordinance, I think it is open to the Court to come to the conclusion that there is a duty upon the Government to decide and a right given to the subject to have a decision and a decision which is a judicial decision arrived at after considering proper materials and evidence as provided by Section 1 0.
Turning to the authorities, we have the classical definition of Lord Justice Atkin in Rex v. Electricity Commissioners: London Electricity Joint Committee Co. (1920), Ex parte [1924] I. K. B. 171 (p. 205): Wherever any body of persons have any legal authority to determine questions affecting the rights of others and have the duty to act judicially, and act in excess of the legal authority, they are subject to the controlling jurisdiction of the King's Bench Division exercised in these writs. The difficulty of course that always arises is to decide in which cases there is a duty cast upon a body of persons to act judicially. That duty exists when the determination to be arrived at by the body is a judicial or quasi-judicial determination, and Chief Justice May in The Queen v. Corporation of Dublin (1878) L. R. 2 Ir. 371, 376 defines a judicial act as an act done by competent authority upon consideration of facts and circumstances and imposing liability or affecting the rights of others. This definition was described as one of the best definitions by Lord Atkinson in Frame United Breweries Co. v. Bath. Justices [1926] A. C. 586, 602. There is another Irish Judge whose dictum is also both weighty and appropriate, and that is Chief Baron Palles, and the dictum appears in Reg. (Wexford County Council) v. Local Government Board [1902] 2 Ir. R. 349 (p. 373): I have always thought that to erect a tribunal into a 'court' or 'jurisdiction,' so as to make its determinations judicial, the essential element is that it should have power, by its determination within jurisdiction, to impose liability or affect rights. By this I mean that the liability is imposed, or the rights affected by the determination only, and not by the fact determined, and so that the liability will exist, or the right will be affected, although the determination be wrong in law or in fact. It is otherwise of a ministerial power. If the existence of such a power depend upon a contingency, although it may be necessary for the officer to determine whether the contingency has happened, in order to know whether he shall exercise the power, his determination does not bind. The happening of the contingency may be questioned in an action brought to try the legality of the act done under the alleged exercise of the power. But where the determination binds, although it is based on an erroneous view of facts or law, then the power authorising it is judicial. In this case the determination of the Provincial Government binds the subject because it is left to the opinion of the Government whether it is expedient or necessary to requisition any land and that determination is made dependent upon the happening of a contingency, viz. the existence of a public purpose. Lord Justice Moulton in Rex v. Woodhouse [1906] 2 K. B. 501, 535 expresses the opinion that there must be the exercise of some right or duty to decide in order to provide scope for the writ of certiorari at common law. Lord Justice Scrutton in Rex v. The London County Council: The Entertainments Protection Association, Ex parte [1931] 2 K. B. 215 considers the meaning of the Court to which a writ of certiorari can be issued (p. 233): It is not necessary that it should be a Court in the sense in which this Court is a Court; it is enough if it is exercising, after hearing evidence, judicial functions in the sense that it has to decide on evidence between a proposal and an opposition; and it is not necessary to be strictly a Court; if it is a tribunal which has to decide rights after hearing evidence and opposition, it is amenable to the writ of certiorari. The Advocate General has relied on a decision reported in Cooper v. Wilson [1937] 2 K. B. 309. The question that the Court was considering was whether the Watch Committee had acted properly in dismissing a sergeant in the Liverpool Police Force. He was dismissed by the Chief Constable. He appealed from the decision of the Chief Constable to the Watch Committee and the Watch Committee dismissed the appeal. Now in his judgment Lord Justice Scott was not considering the distinction between a judicial or quasi-judicial act and a ministerial act, but what he was considering was the distinction between a judicial act and a quasi-judicial act, and this distinction was necessary to consider because what the learned Lord Justice had to decide was. whether the procedure followed by the Watch Committee was a proper procedure, or not, and Lord Justice Scott at p. 340 accepts the Report of the Ministers' Powers Committee as definition of the words "judicial" and "quasi-judicial. " According to this report a true judicial decision presupposes an existing dispute between two or more parties, and that involves four requisites: (1) The presentation (not necessarily orally) of their case by the parties to the dispute; (2) if the dispute between them is a question of fact, the ascertainment of the fact by means of evidence adduced by the parties-to the dispute and often with the assistance of argument by or on behalf of the parties on the evidence; (3) if the dispute between them is a question of law, the submission of legal argument by the parties; and (4) a decision which disposes of the whole matter by a finding upon the facts in dispute and an application of the law of the land to the facts so found, including where required a ruling upon any disputed question of law. A quasi-judicial decision involves requisities (1) and (2), does not necessarily involve (3), and never involves (4 ). I do not see how requisites (1) and (2) would not be present in the decision to be arrived at by Government before they requisition any land under Section 3 .There would be the case of the State and the case of the subject to be presented and heard by Government, and as the question to be determined would be both a question of fact and a question of law, the Government would have to consider both evidence and the legal aspect of the matter, because public purpose is a mixed question of law and fact. (See the decision of the Privy Council in Hamabai Framji Petit v. Secretary of State for India, and Moosa Hajee Hassan v. Secretary of State for India (1915) I. L. R. 39 Bom. 279, s. c. 17, Bom. L. R. 100, p. c, where they adopted the definition of Mr. Justice Batchelor, viz. an object or aim, in which the general interest of the community, as opposed to the particular interest of individuals, is directly and vitally concerned.)