Delegated legislation:

Introduction:

The primary functions of the parliament are to make laws. However, given the volume of
legislation which needs to be passed in a year and relatively limited amount of parliamentary
time available for this purpose, it is simply not possible for all the necessary legislation to be
enacted by the parliament. Accordingly, a further type of legislation exists which is known as
delegated legislation. Under delegated legislation Parliament often passes statute that sets out
broad outlines of policy and principles and delegates authority to an executive branch official to
issue delegated legislation that fleshes out the details and provide procedure for implementing
the substantive provisions of the statute.

Delegated Legislation as also referred to secondary legislation or subordinate legislation is law

made by an executive authority under powers given to them by a primary authority or parent act
in order to implement and administer the requirements of primary legislation.

The task of delegating the law making power by legislature to the executive is not a recent
phenomenon, but is a regular feature in a democratic state where there is separation between the
executive and the legislature.

Delegated Legislation is different from executive legislation. In executive legislation the

executive may have law making powers as vast and original as that of the legislature e.g.
ordinance making power of president and Governor, but under Delegated Legislation power is
limited.

Definitions of DL:

In simple terms, delegated legislation is a law made by a person or body other than the
legislature but with the authority of the legislature.

Salmond defined Delegated Legislation as: “subordinate legislation i.e. Delegated legislation is
that which proceeds from any authority other than the sovereign power, and is therefore
dependent for its continued existence and validity on some superior or supreme authority.”

M.P. Jain says that delegated legislation is applied in two aspects:

 1) It might be defined as the practice of agency subordinate to the legislature that is given by
the legislature.
2) The rules that arise from the subordinate authority that pursues granted to it by the
legislature.

The committee on Minister’s power (CMP) or donoughmore committee, appointed in 1929 to

examine the growing powers of administration and report on the constitutional validity of
delegated legislation, submitted its report in 1932, where it defined delegated legislation in the
following two ways:

1) The exercise of legislative power by the executive under the authority delegated to it by
the parliament; and
2) The rules, regulations, bye laws, etc., made by the the executive in the exercise of the law
making power delegated to it by the parliament.

So, the delegated legislation refers to all law making which takes place outside the legislature
and is generally expressed as rules, regulations, orders, bye laws, directions, schemes,
notifications which actually signifies subordinate legislation or delegated legislation. The statute
enacted y the legislature conferring the legislative power upon the executive is known as “parent
Act and the rules, regulations etc. made by the the executive in pursuance of the legislative
powers conferred by the legislature are known as “subordinate or child legislation.”