SYEDA SHAHAZORE Vs. GOVERNMENT OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this appeal, the order of the learned single Judge upholding the order passed by the State Government in dismissing the appeal of the appellant husband against the externment order passed by respondent No. 2-Commissioner of Police, Hyderabad, is assailed. The order of externment was passed by respondent No. 2 under the Hyderabad City Police Act, 1348 Fasli. The appellant's husband preferred an appeal to the Government on 29-12-1995 raising several grounds - that he was falsely and unreasonably implicated in criminal cases of which he has been acquitted, there was no single case pending against him in any Court and that all the cases booked against him were for the period preceding 1989. He also stated that he belongs to business family, he is an income-tax payee and he himself is a businessman. It was thus his case that there are no grounds for his externment and he also denied the notice from respondent No. 2 to have been received by him.

(2.) Orders passed by the Government on 26-2-1995 read as follows :

(3.) As against the orders passed by Commissioner of Police, an appeal is provided under S. 26(9) of the Act. The appeal being statutory, undoubtedly the function of the Government in deciding the appeal is a quasi-judicial one. It is eminently necessary for a quasi-judicial authority, in discharge of its functions, to assign reasons for taking the decision, so that not only that the reasons are available to the superior court to know what consideration impelled the authority to take the view as taken, but also the order to be transparent enough so as to acquaint the affected person of how his grievance has been considered. The view was expressed by the Supreme Court in Mahabir Prasad v. State of U.P., AIR 1970 SC 1302, as follows : "Opportunity to a party interested in the dispute to present his case on questions of law as well as fact, ascertainment of facts from materials before the Tribunal after disclosing the materials to the party against whom it is intended to use them, and adjudication by a reasoned judgment upon a finding of the facts in controversy and application of the law to the facts found, are attributes of even a quasi-judicial determination. It must appear not merely that the authority entrusted with quasi-judicial authority has reached a conclusion on the problem before him, it must appear that he has reached a conclusion which is according to law and just and for ensuring that end he must record the ultimate mental process leading from the dispute to its solution. Satisfactory decision of a disputed claim may be reached only if it be supported by the most cogent reasons that appeal to the authority. Recording of reasons in support of a decision on a disputed claim by a quasi-judicial authority ensures that the decision is reached according to law and is not the result of caprice, whim or fancy or reached on grounds of policy or expediency. A party to the dispute is ordinarily entitled to know the grounds on which the authority has rejected his claim. If the order is subject to appeal, the necessity to record reasons is greater, for without recorded reasons the appellate authority has no material on which it may determine whether the facts were properly ascertained, the relevant law was correctly applied and the decision was just."