- (1.) A short and a simple question, and a question which is no longer res integra. The question has been settled almost beyond any doubt for about a decade and a half since the decisions of the Supreme Court in E.P.Royappa, AIR 1974 SC 555; in Erusion Equipments and Chemicals Ltd., AIR 1975 SC 266, in Maneka Gandhi, AIR 1978 SC 597, in International Airport Authority, AIR 1979 SC 1628; in Kashturi Lal Laxmi Reddy, AIR 1980 SC 1992 and a host of other decisions. Reference may also be made to a very recent decision of the Supreme Court (reported in the September Issue of the All India Reporter) in Dwarkadas Marfatia, AIR 1989 SC 1642.
(2.) The cumulative upshot of all these decisions would unmistakably demonstrate not only the expansion of the frontiers of judicial review of administrative actions, but also the expansion of the concept of administrative or State action itself. No detailed reference to these long catena of decisions is at all necessary as the position now appears to be too firmly established in our Administrative-cum-Constitutional Jurisprudence and Mr. Subrata Roy Chowdhury, the learned Counsel for the Respondents, has not also disputed the position in law. But since we have not been able to get rid of the forensic habit, imbided from the Britishers, of moving, in matters of law, on the crutches of precedents and have developed a mental frame not to feel confident or of not being able to have inspired confidence without citation of authorities, I would propose to refer to the decision in Kasturi Lai Lakshrm Reddy, AIR 1980 SC 1992 and in Dwarkadas Marfatia, AIR 1989 SC 1642 to maintain the continuity of our curial rituals.
(3.) The three-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court in Kasturi Lai Lakshmi Reddy (supra, at to 1999) has ruled that "whatever be its activity", governmental or non-governmental, statutory or contractual, public welfare or purely commercial, "the Government is still the Government"; "every activity of the Government has a public element in it and it must, therefore, be informed with reasons and guided by public interest"; "every action taken by the Government must be in public interest"; "the Government cannot act arbitrarily and, without reason and if it does, its action would be liable to be invalidated".;