The paper studies the judicial review of administrative actions with reference to the writ of Mandamus from the Indian point of view. Judicial review of administrative actions is the power of the court to determine the constitutionality of the Acts by the authority. The principal object of the writ of Mandamus is to provide for judicial review of State action by which the court will order in the form of command to the public authority if it is not performing the functions. The object of the writ is not to punish the authority but to ask to perform its duty. In India, it has enabled the common man to take the public authority to task whenever it is not performing its duty. In the absence of such a writ, it would be difficult to have control over the public authority with regard to their work.

A right without a remedy for the enforcement of the right is of little avail. In jurisprudence, right and remedy go together. The framers of the Indian Constitution have not only guaranteed the fundamental rights but also provided the machinery for its enforcement. A citizen who is aggrieved by a decision of a public body has a variety of remedies available to him, including the ‘prerogative writ’. The English system of administration of justice was quite unknown in India till the advent of the East India Company. In pursuance of the Regulating Act-1773, a Royal Charter was granted under which the Supreme Court in Calcutta was established. Clause 21 of that Charter can be said to be the first instrument of power conferring the right of issue prerogative writs by courts. Thus, the ‘writs jurisdiction‘ began in India. Even after the adoption of our Constitution in 1950, the same has been kept under Articles 32 and 226 of it. These writs ordinarily are issued as a matter of course if a breach of a fundamental right is established. But the Supreme Court has laid down in Tilokchand vs. H.B.Munshi1 that “in giving relief under article 32, the court cannot ignore and trample under foot all laws of procedure, evidence, limitation, res judicata and like”. Thus, the founding fathers of the Constitution were aware of the role played by the prerogative writs in England and have specially incorporated it in the Indian Constitution under the abovementioned two articles.

Law Review Journal, Judicial, Administrative Actions, Critical Study, Writ of Mandamus, Writ of Mandamus, American Law, Indian Scenario.