Judgment :- 1. The sole question for determination in this appeal is whether a writ of certiorari is available against the order of a Collector refusing to grant a certificate under S.14 of the Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963. The answer depends on whether he has a duty to act judicially in dealing with an application under that provision. 2. If the Collector has a duty to act judicially, the principle of audi alteram partem the canon of natural justice which ensures the right to a hearing comes into the picture. It will follow that this appeal has to be allowed as it is common ground that the appellant was not heard in support of his petition or in opposition to the objections filed against his application. 3. S.13 of the Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963, provides for fixity of tenure. Sub-section (1) thereof says that notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any law, custom, usage or contract, or in any decree or order of court, every tenant shall have fixity of tenure in respect of his holding, and no land from the holding shall be resumed except as provided in S.14 to 22. 4. S.14 of the Act provides that a trustee or owner of a place of public religious worship may resume from a tenant the whole or any portion of his holding when the same is needed for the purpose of extending the place of public religious worship and the Collector of the district certifies that the same is so needed. There is a time limit. According to S.18 an application for resumption in a case like the one before us has to be filed within a year from the commencement of the Act, namely, the 1st April 1964. 5. R.6 to 10 of the Kerala Land Reforms (Tenancy) Rules, 1964, deal with resumption under S.14 to 22 of the Act. They read as follows: "6. An application for the certificate referred to in S.14, shall be disposed of by the Collector as expeditiously as practicable and a copy of his order thereon shall, as soon as it is passed, be furnished to the Land Tribunal in whose jurisdiction the property to which the application relates, is situate. 7. They read as follows: "6. An application for the certificate referred to in S.14, shall be disposed of by the Collector as expeditiously as practicable and a copy of his order thereon shall, as soon as it is passed, be furnished to the Land Tribunal in whose jurisdiction the property to which the application relates, is situate. 7. The application for resumption of land by the landlord shall be in Form No.1 and all persons who have interest in the land to be resumed, including a Kudikidappukaran, shall be made parties to it. 8. As soon as may be, after the receipt of the application referred to in R.7, the Land Tribunal shall issue notice thereof to the persons interested in the land directing them to appeal before it on a specified date for being heard. Any objections to, or claims as regards the value of improvements, arrears of rent or any other matter in regard to the land sought to be resumed, shall be adjudicated by the Land Tribunal, and the Land Tribunal shall pass orders settling the rights of each such person and specifying the person entitled to resumption. 9. An application under S.14 for the resumption of land for the purpose of extending a place of public religious worship shall be accompanied by the original or a certified copy of the Collector's certificate. If the certificate has been applied for but not received, the fact shall be stated in the application, and the Land Tribunal shall, after satisfying itself that such an application has been made to the Collector in time, await the order of the Collector on such application before disposing of the application for resumption. 10. Besides the particulars mentioned in sub-section (2) of S.22, the order passed by the Land Tribunal shall specify the survey numbers, and sub-division numbers, if any, (or an adequate description) of the land allowed to be resumed, the extent of land that will be left after resumption, and the value of the improvements belonging to the cultivating tenant and the other persons, if any, interested in the land allowed to be resumed. The order shall also specify the amounts to be paid by the landlord resuming the land, and the persons to whom the payments are to be made, and shall further direct that the amounts be deposited with the Land Tribunal within a period of thirty days from the date of the order. On such deposit being made, the Land Tribunal shall pay the amounts to the parties and obtain receipt therefor." 6. It has been said that certiorari is available only if the function in question is judicial or quasi judicial in character. Is the Collector exercising such a function when he refuses to grant a certificate under S.14 of the Act? In the light of the sections and the rules extracted above we have no hesitation in holding that the Collector in refusing a certificate under S.14 is exercising a quasi-judicial function and that he has a duty to act judicially. The fact that he is exercising a public duty imposed by a statute and that the exercise of the said duty can destroy valuable private rights in property are sufficient to come to that conclusion. 7. According to Garner the essential characteristics of a judicial function are that: "(i) these must be a lis inter paries, or a dispute between two or more parties; (ii) the proceedings in the lis must have been initiated by one (or more) of the parties to the Us, but not by the tribunal itself or by some government agency or other body not being a party to the lis; (iii) as a general rule, the deciding judge, having found the facts and applied the appropriate principles of law thereto, has little discretion in coming to his decision; he may not be influenced by preconceived principles of policy, but must apply prescribed rules of law so as to reach a decision." (Administrative Law, 1963 Edition, Page 11) And according to the Donoughmore Report: "The word 'quasi', when prefixed to a legal term, generally means that the thing which is described by the word, has some of the legal attributes denoted and connoted by the legal term but that it has not all of them." (Report of the Committee on Ministers' Powers, Page 73) 8. Seervai says that the test to decide whether the determination of an administrative body affecting the rights of subjects is quasi-judicial is whether the body "has to exercise a discretion by reference to extraneous considerations of policy and expediency or whether it is confined to the facts before it within the frame-work of the law it has to administer, and nothing else? (Constitutional law of India, Page 608). According to Alien the riddle of administrative-or-judicial is a riddle that grins mockingly and any firm generalisation is impossible. He continues: "But perhaps it can be said without excessive hardihood that whenever there is any discernible modicum of judicial functioning in the proceedings in question the Court will not be astute to dismiss a motion for certiorari merely because the inferior authority is, predominantly, of an administrative natures. Even more generally (and, I fear vaguely) it might be said that the Court leans towards rather than against the grant of certiorari on reasonable cause shown, and this is entirely in accordance with the history of the writ; for it was for centuries the chief discipline of the King's Bench over the somewhat erratic jurisdiction of the justices of the peace, who, as the local governors of the country, were invested with a remarkable miscellany of administrative and judicial functions" (Law and Orders, Third Edition, Page 221) 9. In Cooper v. Wandsworth Board of Works, (1863),14 C. B. N. S.180, Erle C. J. held that the power to demolish a building was subject to the qualification repeatedly recognised "that no man is to be deprived of his property without his having an opportunity of being heard", and that the said qualification generally applied to "many exercises of power which in common understanding would not be at all a more judicial proceeding than would be the act of the district board in ordering a house to be pulled down" In that case Willes J. said that the rule was "of universal application and founded on the plainest principles of justice", and Byles J. that "although there are no positive words in a statute re-requiring that the party shall be heard, yet the justice of the common law will supply the omission of the legislature". These observations of Erle C. J. and Willes and Byles JJ. were quoted with approval by Lord Reid in Ridge v. Baldwin, (1963) 2 All E. R.66. 10. These observations of Erle C. J. and Willes and Byles JJ. were quoted with approval by Lord Reid in Ridge v. Baldwin, (1963) 2 All E. R.66. 10. In Maradana Mosque v. Badi-Ud-Din Mahmud, (1966) 1 All E R.645, an appeal from Ceylon, the Privy Council had to consider whether a Minister had to act judicially under S.11 of the Assistant Schools and Training Colleges (Special Provisions) Act, No. 5 of 1960. The relevant portion of that section reads as follows: "Where the Minister is satisfied (b) after consultation with the Director, that any school which, by virtue of the provisions of this Act, is being administered as an unaided school, is being so administered in contravention of any of the provisions of this Act or any regulations or orders made thereunder or of any other written law applicable in the case of such school, the Minister may, by order published in the Gazette, declare that, with effect from such date as shall be specified in the order, (i) such school shall cease to be an unaided school, (ii) such school shall be deemed for all purposes to be an assisted school, and (iii) the Director shall be the manager of such school." Herat J. in the Supreme Court of Ceylon held that certiorari only lies to question a judicial act and that the act of the Minister under S.11 which was challenged before him, even if unjustified, was purely ministerial in character and that as a result no writ could issue. The Privy Council said: "With all respect to the learned judge, it is not correct to regard the Minister's act as purely ministerial." 11. In H. K. (An Infant) In re, (1967) 2 WLR. 962, the motion was for an order of certiorari to quash a decision of the Chief Immigration Officer of the London Airport whereby. It was decided that an infant should be refused admission to the United Kingdon. Salmon L. J. said: "Of course, an immigration officer is acting in an administrative rather than in a judicial capacity. What, however, is a quasi-judicial capacity has, so fas as I know, never been exhaustively defined. It was decided that an infant should be refused admission to the United Kingdon. Salmon L. J. said: "Of course, an immigration officer is acting in an administrative rather than in a judicial capacity. What, however, is a quasi-judicial capacity has, so fas as I know, never been exhaustively defined. It seems to me to cover at any rate a case where the circumstances in which a person who is called upon to exercise a statutory power and make a decision affecting basic rights of others are such that the law impliedly imposes upon him a duty to act fairly. When Parliament passed the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, 1962, it deprived Commonwealth citizens of their right of unrestricted entry into the United Kingdom. It laid down conditions under which they might enter and left if to the immigration officers to decide whether such conditions existed. Their decision are of vital importance to the immigrants since their whole future may depend upon it. In my judgment it is implicit in the statute that the authorities in exercising these powers and making decisions must act in accordance with the principles of natural justice." And Lord Parker C. J. went further. His Lordship said: "I doubt whether it can be said that the immigration authorities are acting in a judicial or quasi-judicial capacity as those terms are generally understood. But at the same time, I myself think that even if a immigration officer is not in a judicial or quasi-judicial capacity, he must at any rate give the immigrant an opportunity of satisfying him of the matters in the subsection, and for that purpose let the immigrant know what his immediate impression is so that the immigrant can disabuse him. That is not, as I see it, a question of acting or being required to act judicially, but of being required to act fairly. Good administration and an honest or bona fide decision must, as it seems to me, require not merely impartiality, nor merely bringing one's mind to bear on the problem, but acting fairly; and to the limited extent that the circumstances of any particular case allow, and within the legislative framework under which the administrator is working, only to that limited extent do the so-called rules of natural justice apply, which in a case such as this is merely a duty to act fairly. I appreciated that in saying that it may be said that one is going further than is permitted on the decided cases because heretofore at any rate the decisions of the courts do seem to have drawn a strict line in these matters according to whether there is or is not a duty to act judicially or quasi judicially. It has sometimes been said that if there is no duty to act judicially or quasi judicially there is no power in the court whatever to interfere." 12. A recent decision of the Privy Council, Durayappah v. Fernande, (1967) 3 W. L. R.289, is of considerable importance. As pointed out by the Australian Law Journal Volume 41, Page 128 that decision is to the effect that "a statutory power does not have to be classifiable as 'judicial' or 'quasi judicial' before the rules of natural justice are applicable", and that "nothing external to the power, no 'super-added' duty to act judicially, would be necessary for the rules of natural justice to be applicable or for certiorari to be available". 13. In the case above-mentioned the Privy Council pointed out that in Ridge v. Baldwin, (1963) 2 All E. R.66, no attempt was made to give an exhaustive classification of the cases where the principle audi alterant partem should be applied, and continued: "In their Lordships' opinion it would be wrong to do so. Outside well-known cases such as dismissal from office, deprivation of property and expulsion from clubs, there is a vast area where the principle can only be applied upon most general considerations." These considerations, according to the Australian Law Journal Volume 41, Page 129 are briefly "whether an exercise of the power would have a 'serious' effect on the applicant, and whether an exercise of the power was conditional on some factual determination or evaluation rather than being a completely open discretion based on policy". 14. In Reg. v. Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, Ex parte Lain, (1967) 3 W. L. R.348, Lord Parker C. J. said that the remedy by way of certiorari is available even though the decision is merely a step as a result of which legally enforceable rights may be affected, and continued: "The position as I see it is that the exact limits of the ancient remedy by way of certiorari have never been and ought not to be specifically defined. They have varied from time to time being extended to meet changing conditions. At one time the writ only went to an inferior court. Later its ambit was extended to statutory tribunals determining a lis inter parties. Later again it extended to cases where there was no lis in the strict sense of the word but where immediate or subsequent rights of a citizen were affected. The only constant limits throughout were that it was performing a public duty. Private or domestic tribunals have always been outside the scope of certiorari since their authority is derived solely from contract, that is from the agreement of the parties concerned. Finally, it is to be observed that the remedy has now been extended, see Reg v. Manchester Legal Aid Committee Ex parte P. A Brand & Co. Ltd. (1952) 1 All E. R.480, to cases in which the decision of an administrative officer is only arrived at after an inquiry or process of a judicial or quasi judicial character. In such a case this court has jurisdiction to supervise that process. We have as it seems to me reached the position when the ambit of certiorari can be said to cover every case in which a body of persons of a public as opposed to a purely private or domestic character has to determine matters affecting subjects provided always that it has a duty to act judicially." 15. In the light of the decisions and observations mentioned above we think we are justified in holding that the Collector in refusing to grant a certificate under S.14 is exercising a quasi judicial function, that he has a duty to act judicially, that the said duty attracts the principle of audi alteram partem or the canon of the natural justice which ensures the right to a hearing and that as no hearing has been granted before Ext. P-1 was passed, this writ appeal has to be allowed and the Collector directed to dispose of the application afresh after giving the parties interested an opportunity to present their respective cases. We do so. 16. Our attention was invited to Padmanabhan v Appu, (1966 KLT. 260). That was a case in which a certificate was granted by a Collector under S.14 of the Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963. Mr. We do so. 16. Our attention was invited to Padmanabhan v Appu, (1966 KLT. 260). That was a case in which a certificate was granted by a Collector under S.14 of the Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963. Mr. Justice Raman Nayar found that the certificate was granted "after giving the petitioner a full hearing through an advocate"', and that there was no violation of the principles of natural justice. The learned judge, however, stated as follows: "As I read the section S.14 the grant of a certificate by the Collector under S.14 of Act I of 1964 is not a quasi-judicial act. It is purely an administrative act, and, notwithstanding the difference in terminology, analogous to the grant of consent under S.92 of the Civil Procedure Code, the purpose in both cases being to ensure that frivolous proceedings are cot instituted. The grant of the certificate by the Collector involves no adjudication whatsoever. The adjudication is by the Land Tribunal before which an application is made under S.22, and, before ordering resumption, the Land Tribunal has to satisfy itself that every one of the elements required by S.14. including the certificate by the Collector, obtains. The Collector's certificate is not merely not conclusive, it is not even relevant so far as any of the elements other than the existence of the certificate is concerned." What is challenged in this case is not the grant of a certificate but a refusal thereof. The correctness of the observations made above, therefore, does not really arise for consideration. All that we need do and all that we want to do is to make it quite clear that a Collector when he refuses a certificate under S.14 is refusing it in the exercise of a function that is quasi judicial. 17. It is true that an order of the Advocate-General under S.92 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, is not an order that is quasi-judicial. That section, however, does not provide any analogy to S.14 of the Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963. 18. The suit contemplated by S.92 is a representative suit, that is, a suit which is prosecuted on behalf of the public for the vindication of a public right. That section, however, does not provide any analogy to S.14 of the Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963. 18. The suit contemplated by S.92 is a representative suit, that is, a suit which is prosecuted on behalf of the public for the vindication of a public right. A suit under S.14 is a suit by the trustee or owner of a place of public religious worship in vindication of his own rights or in due discharge of his own duties. 19. A suit by the whole body of persons authorised to administer a trust or by all the persons interested in the trust is not within S.92. It has also to be noted that the Advocate-General himself can institute the suits contemplated by S.92, and this is as it should be, as he represents the State which as parens patriae has the duty to ensure the proper administration of public charities. 20. In Shanmukham v. Govinda, AIR. 1938 Madras 92 a suit for accounts by a trustee against a co-trustee Varadachair J quoted the following passage from the 10th Edition of Mulla's C.P.C., page 309: "It is not every suit claiming any of the reliefs specified in sub-S. (1) that should be brought with the consent of the Advocate-General, but those suits only which besides claiming any of those reliefs are brought by individuals as representatives of the general public"; and said: "In a suit like the present, the relief though it may be of the kind mentioned in S.92 (1) is not sought in the larger interests of the public but is merely for the purpose of vindicating the private rights of one of the trustees and of enabling him to discharge the duties and liabilities which are imposed upon him by the trust." 21. The writ appeal is allowed as indicated in Para.15 above. In the circumstances of the case, however, there will be no order as to costs. Allowed.