In the case of conditional legislation, the legislation is complete in itself but its operation is made to depend on fulfillment of certain conditions and what is delegated to an outside authority, is the power to determine according to its own judgment whether or not those conditions are fulfilled. In case of delegated legislation proper, some portion of the legislative power of the Legislature is delegated to the outside authority in that, the Legislature, though competent to perform both the essential and ancillary legislative functions, performs only the former and parts with the latter, i.e., the ancillary function of laying down details in favour of another for executing the policy of the statute enacted. The distinction between the two exists in this that whereas conditional legislation contains no element of delegation of legislative power and is, therefore, not open to attack on the ground of excessive delegation, delegated legislation does confer some legislative power on some outside authority and is therefore open to attack on the ground of excessive delegation.
In Sardar Inder Singh v. State of
“The distinction between conditional legislation and delegated legislation is this that :
in the former the delegate's power is that of determining when a legislative declared rule of conduct shall become effective : Hampton and Co. v. U.S., (1927) 276 US 394, and the latter involves delegation of rule-making power which constitutionally may be exercised by the administrative agent. This means that the legislature having laid down the broad principles of its policy in the legislation can then leave the details to be supplied by the administrative authority. In other words by delegated legislation the delegate completes the legislation by supplying details within the limits prescribed by the statute and in the case of conditional legislation the power of legislation is exercised by the legislature conditionally, leaving to the discretion of an external authority the time and manner of carrying its legislation into effect as also the determination of the area to which it is to extend; [The Queen v. Burah, (1978) 3 App Cas 889; Russel v. The Queen, (1882) 7 App Cas 829, 835; King Emperor v. Benoarilal Sarma, (1944) 72
The supreme court said that conditional legislation can be broadly classified into three categories :-
In the first category when the Legislature has completed the task of enacting a Statute, the entire superstructure of the legislation is ready but its future applicability to a given area is left to the subjective satisfaction of the delegate who being satisfied about the conditions indicating the ripe time for applying the machinery of the said Act to a given area exercises that power as a delegate of the parent legislative body. When the Act itself is complete and is enacted to be uniformly applied in future to all those who are to be covered by the sweep of the Act, the Legislature can be said to have complied its task. All that it leaves to the delegate is to apply the same uniformly to a given area indicated by the parent Legislature itself but at an appropriate time. This would be an act of pure and simple conditional legislation depending upon the subjective satisfaction of the delegate as to when the said Act enacted and completed by the parent Legislature is to be made effective. As the parent Legislature itself has laid down a binding course of conduct to be followed by all and sundry to be covered by the sweep of the legislation and as it has to act as a binding rule of conduct within that sweep and on the basis of which all their future actions are to be controlled and guided, it can easily be visualised that if the parent Legislature while it enacted such law was not required to hear the parties likely to be affected by the operation of the Act, its delegate exercising an extremely limited and almost ministerial function as an agent of the principal Legislature applying the Act to the area at an appropriate time is also not supposed and required to hear all those who are likely to be affected in future by the binding code of conduct uniformly laid down to be followed by all within the sweep of the Act as enacted by the parent Legislature. However, there may be second category of conditional legislations wherein the delegate has to decide whether and under what circumstances a completed Act of the parent legislation which has already come into force is to be partially withdrawn from operation in a given area or in given cases so as not to be applicable to a given class of persons who are otherwise admittedly governed by the Act. When such a power by way of conditional legislation is to be exercised by the delegate a question may arise as to how the said power can be exercised. In such an eventuality if the satisfaction regarding the existence of condition precedent to the exercise of such power depends upon pure subjective satisfaction of the delegate and if such an exercise is not required to be based on the prima facie proof of factual data for and against such an exercise and if such an exercise is to uniformly apply in future to a given common class of subjects to be governed by such an exercise and when such an exercise is not to be confined to individual cases only, then even in such category of cases while exercising conditional legislative powers the delegate may not be required to have an objective assessment after considering rival versions on the data placed before it for being taken into consideration by it in exercise of such power of conditional legislation.
Where the delegate proceeds to fill up the details of the legislation for the future which is part of the integrated action of policy-making for the future, it is part of the future policy and is legislative. But where he merely determines either subjectively or objectively - depending upon the "conditions" imposed in the Statute permitting exercise of power by the delegate - there is no legislation involved in the real sense and therefore, applicability of principles of fair play, consultation or natural justice to the extent necessary cannot be said to be foreclosed. The fact that in such cases of 'conditional legislation' these principles are not foreclosed does not necessarily mean that they are always mandated. In a case of purely ministerial function or in a case where no objective conditions are prescribed and the matter is left to the subjective satisfaction of the delegate no such principles of fair play, consultation or natural justice could be attracted. That is because the very nature of the administrative determination does not attract these formalities and not because the determination is legislative in character. But there may be a third category of cases wherein the exercise of conditional legislation would depend upon satisfaction of the delegate on objective facts placed by one class of persons seeking benefit of such an exercise with a view to deprive the rival class of persons who otherwise might have already got statutory benefits under the Act and who are likely to lose the existing benefit because of exercise of such a power by the delegate. In such type of cases the satisfaction of the delegate has necessarily to be based on objective consideration of the relevant data for and against the exercise of such power. May be such an exercise may not amount to any judicial or quasi-judicial function, still it has to be treated to be one which requires objective consideration of relevant factual data pressed in service by one side and which could be tried to be rebutted by the other side who would be adversely affected if such exercise of power is undertaken by the delegate. In such a third category of cases of conditional legislation the Legislature fixes up objective conditions for the exercise of power by the delegate to be applied to past or existing facts and for deciding whether the rights or liabilities created by the Act are to be denied or extended to particular areas, persons or groups. This exercise is not left to his subjective satisfaction nor it is a mere ministerial exercise
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