Various terms used legally
Jashu
(Querist) 05 August 2020
This query is : Resolved
Dear Sir,
I am confused with following words, can someone help me to understand them.
Meanings of
1. Adjudication officer,
2. Adjudication authority,
3. Investigating authority,
4. Administrative authority
5. Regulatory authority
6. Prosecuting authority
7. Enforcement authority
8. Appellate authority
Thanks in advance
Isaac Gabriel
(Expert) 05 August 2020
Exam questios.Check in law books
K Rajasekharan
(Expert) 05 August 2020
Let me try to answer this question, which appears to me is a tough task, particularly because many of these quite frequently used terms are bewildering to a lay person. The answer is as follows:
Adjudication is a process of taking a final decision after considering the two sides of an issue or dispute. When it is done by an officer he can be called adjudication officer and if it is done by a body consisting of more than one person it may be called adjudicating authority.
An authority is a body or power centre which is authorised to do some legal functions as per some law.
The term investigation is used to denote the process of collection of facts relating to a crime which is normally done by police, but in some other special offences it is done by some other functionaries authorised to do it.
Administrative authority is some functionary authorised to manage or execute a policy matter taken by some higher body or carry out the business of government or affairs of a public organisation. Administration is all that comes into play after policy making.
Regulatory authority is an authority or officer giving licences or permissions and overseeing that the conditions of those licences are carefully followed. The District Collector, RTO, Village Panchayat Secretary etc are partly regulatory functionaries.
Prosecution consists of all the processes that comes into play after the investigation of a crime and includes everything that the prosecutor in the criminal court does in submitting the evidence and proving a crime charged against an accused during the court proceedings and it comes to an end at the conclusion of the case with the judgement.
Enforcement means enforcement of the rules and regulation and it is normally used in relation to taxes and duties.
Appellate authority is an authority empowered with the duty to hear appeal and decide whether the adjudication done at the lower level is right or not and take a final higher decision of the matter at issue.
Kindly correct me if I have gone wrong in any part of my answer.
Rajendra K Goyal
(Expert) 05 August 2020
Seems examination question.
Search google / discuss with your professor.
Shilesh Patel
(Expert) 06 August 2020
For all such type of questions, you must google it.
K Rajasekharan
(Expert) 06 August 2020
A couple of years ago a trial court and the high court in Andhra Pradesh convicted and sentenced a lady for punishment for the offence of adultery based on their understanding of the meaning of the term in the dictionary.
Only when the case reached the supreme court the court found that a lady cannot be punished under adultery as per Indian penal Code.
The lower court and the high court, probably by oversight, did not make the distinct difference of the meaning of the term 'adultery' in the dictionary and the legal terminology in the case.
Ordinary dictionary and the legal dictionary provide different meanings for many terms.
Similarly the meaning of some terms you can get from a dictionary would be different from its legal meaning. 'Complaint' is a term of such kind.
Above all, for some terms the meaning you get from a dictionary, like the Oxford having 20 volumes when last printed and devoting 6 large sized pages for the first word 'a', would be so abstract that you cannot make out the concept clearly.
Dr J C Vashista
(Expert) 07 August 2020
The author could have referred legal dictionary, if not intending to give an examination to experts on this platform.
Rajendra K Goyal
(Expert) 07 August 2020
Good information from expert K Rajasekharan ji.
This is academic query, should have been posted in forum section by the author.
This section generally deals with needy litigants not for academic query.
K Rajasekharan
(Expert) 10 August 2020
Thank you Goyalji very much.
But I see no reason for anybody to be aggrieved by a query, which has already been asked by him, has been allowed to be asked by the site admin, and has been answered by some willing experts, by classifying the query such as text book query, academic query, reference query, fictitious query or what not. Such lamentation being repeated in almost every query has at least no practical purpose.
A query is a query, which is theoretical to some extent and practical to some other extent, and nothing more. Every theoretical question is a practical question as well. No theory will remain as a theory if it cannot be applied reasonably well in practical sense almost everywhere in a certain condition.
Every case that starts with in a suit or writ more or less of practical facts initially turns into a theoretical or academic or philosophical discussion (Jurisprudence is philosophy or theory of law) after the collection of evidence, particularly at the argument stage. Issues framed in a suit are of theoretical nature though it is embedded with some practical facets.
The querist who spends time, money and energy asks questions here in this expert forum to get some answers from the experts, who need not be a real expert but knows something worthwhile, to get a reasonably meaningful answer than from a layman who may not know the intricacies of law.
My humble request is not to intimidate them. This expert forum would have been a more proactive one, if they can come here fearlessly and ask their questions and get their doubts cleared when in a gruelling situation.
R.K Nanda
(Expert) 11 August 2020
Search google for it.
