Legitimate Expectation - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition legitimate-expectation

Definition :

Legitimate expectation, However, the more important aspect is whether the decision-maker can sustain the change in policy by resort to wednesbury principles of rationality or whether the court can go into the question whether the decision-maker has properly balanced the legitimate expectation as against the need for a change, Punjab Communications Ltd. v. Union of India, (1999) 4 SCC 727.

Legitimate expectation, is a latest recruit to a long list of concepts fashioned by the courts for review of administrative actions, Confederation of Ex-Servicemen Assns. v. Union of India, (2006) 8 SCC 399.

It is still at a stage of evolution. The principle is at the root of the rule of law and requires regularity, predictability and certainty in the Government's dealings with the public. The procedural part of it relates to a representation that a hearing or other appropriate procedure will be afforded before the decision is made.

Means the expectations may be based on some statement or undertaking by, or on behalf of, the public authority which has the duty of making the decision, if the authority has, through its officers, acted in a way that would make it unfair or inconsistent with good administration for him to be denied such an inquiry, Attorney-General of Hong Kong v. Ng Yuen Shiu, (1983) 2 All ER 3461: (1983) 2 AC 629: (1983) 2 WLR 735 (PC).

Means the legitimacy of an expectation can be inferred only if it is founded on the sanction of law or custom or an established procedure followed in regular and natural sequence. Again it is distinguishable from a genuine expectation. Such expectation should be justifiably legitimate and protectable. Every such legitimate expectation does not by itself fructify into a right and therefore it does not amount to a right in the conventional sense, Union of India v. Hindustan Development Corpn., (1993) 3 SCC 499.

It treats inoperative statutory provision as having immediate effect, as contradicted by the language of the Statute, Reg. v. D.P.P., Ex parte. Kebilene [H.L. (E.)], (2000) LR 326 (1) ACT.