Personal Liability: Forging New Tools of Accountability in Public Law

Abstract

In 1991, two decisions passed by benches headed by Kuldip Singh J. marked an unprecedented shift to holding public officers personally liable to pay damages for arbitrary orders. The Supreme Court of India imposed damages to the quantum of fifty lakh rupees on Captain Satish Sharma, the former Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, for arbitrarily allotting fifteen petrol outlets out of his discretionary quota to allottees related to him or his officials. Similarly, Sheila Kaul, the former Minister of Urban Development, was ordered to pay damages of sixty lakh rupees for illegal allotment of shops from her discretionary quota to her associates. While the two decisions ushered in a revolution of personal liability in the arena of public law, one was overturned by a review judgement, and the other has been simply forgotten despite being upheld in the review petition. In light of the growing number and prominence of misfeasance by public officers, this article considers the need for rethinking the theory of personal liability to compensate the public or individual loss adequately, deter the officials and assess it as an alternative to traditional mechanisms of public accountability.

Keywords

Public accountability personal liability abuse of power payment of compensation

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