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        After the II World War, the modern Leviathan was born. The STATE — so exquisitely circumscribed by several decades of liberal theory and practice till the beginning of the I World War — suddenly assumed new powers over realms hitherto deemed immune from its control. The State as night watchman, as the English myth had it, now became the mobiliser of men and property, the commander of economic life, the censor of men's expressions, and the manipulator of men's minds. I am referring to the launch of the Welfare State by the Labour Party Government in Britain after 1945. Though the Labour Party was replaced by the Conservative Party in 1951, the trend of ever-increasing and ever-expanding spheres of governmental influence affecting all walks of life became the order of the day, not only in England but in all parts of the world — more particularly in all the developing countries. It was in the midst of that enlarging gloom of State emasculation of individual dignity, individual rights and civil liberties as a whole, the modern science and art of Administrative Law was created singlehandedly by Professor Sir William Wade (1918-2004) who was a man of creative genius, massive intellect and hawk-like intuition.

        Born in 1918, he had his college education at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. His career began not as a lawyer or barrister but as a civil servant in the British Treasury from 1940-1946. This stint in public administration gave him an insight into the working of minds of civil servants and Ministers.

        Sir William Wade is famous throughout the Commonwealth as the author of an outstanding book on administrative law. He is oft quoted by the judges in all our High Courts and the Supreme Court. However, the first book he wrote was on the Law of Real Property along with the Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Megarry. This book is rated as a classic by all the eminent jurists. His magnum opus is however his great and timeless book on Administrative Law. What Adam Smith has been to the science of economics, Lord Keynes to 20th century economics, Sigmund Freud to psychoanalysis and Albert Einstein to modern physics, Sir William Wade has been to the art and science of Administrative Law after the II World War. To thousands of lawyers in India, Wade is known as the Chief Architect of Administrative Law expounded in his great book which has already seen eight editions. This book is remarkable not only for its scholarship but also for its elegant style marked by economy of expression and ruthlessly strict regard for legal, technical and procedural necessities. He spoke often of the dignity of learning: Of the need to keep scholarship pure, to protect it from its three greatest enemies; amateurism, journalistic prostitution and obsession with doctrine. He declared in one of his famous apophthegms, 'an amateur is a man who thinks more about himself than about his subject.' He passionately believed in professionalism in every field and most of all in his chosen field of Administrative Law. His spiritual belief in the moral duties of scholars generally was kantian in its severity and genuineness. He was always balanced, fair and urbane in his subtle but effective criticism of men and matters. Lord Denning always had a copy of Wade's Administrative Law by his bedside! Wade dedicated the 8th edition of his book to Lord Denning with these words:

        'This edition is dedicated to the memory of Lord Denning who died in 1999 aged 100 - A great judge, an architect of administrative law and a friend of this book.'

        It will not be too much to say that the development of administrative law after the II World War owed much to the personality, writings and intellectual/moral influence of Sir William Wade. Apart from writing great masterpieces in the shape of books, he was a frequent contributor to the Law Quarterly Review, Modern Law Review and other journals, besides delivering several lectures on the subject.

        The II World War began on 3 September, 1939. From that day and throughout the II World War, the executive had absolute and unchecked power in England. All the British courts were most reluctant to subject executive decisions to judicial review. In this context I must refer to The Law Quarterly Review (edited by A L Goodhart and P V Baker) of 1970 in which there is a brilliant article by R F V Heuston on the historic case of Liversidge vs Anderson. In that case The House of Lords was concerned with the meaning and effect of Emergency Regulation 18B, which gave the wartime Home Secretary extraordinary power to detain any person without any trial or charge. Liversidge was detained and the order gave no ground on which it was made. The Attorney General argued that the order was executive in nature and could not be called in question in a court of law. The majority agreed but Lord Atkin dissented and argued that the regulation did not give uncontrolled power of imprisonment to the Home Secretary. Lord Atkin's conclusion was forceful, and touched with that subtle contempt for the intellectual honesty of the opposing view which ran through the whole of his dissenting judgement. The powerful dissent of Lord Atkin is rated by all the great jurists as one of the most classic pieces of legal literature.

        I am quoting below the most inspiring and time-defying part of his dissenting judgement:

        'In this country, amidst the clash of arms, the laws are not silent. They may be changed, but they speak the same language in war as in peace. It has always been one of the pillars of freedom, one of the principles of liberty for which on recent authority we are now fighting, that the judges are no respecters of persons and stand between the subject and any attempted encroachments on his liberty by the executive, alert to see that any coercive action is justified in law. In this case, I have listened to arguments which might have been addressed acceptably to the Court of King's Bench in the time of Charles I.'

        Thanks to the stand taken by Lord Atkin in 1941 and the growing corpus of writings by great scholars like Sir William Wade making it clear that the judiciary can never be denied the power to grant relief against the improper exercise of executive power, it came to be generally accepted that all administrative and executive actions were subject to judicial review from time to time. According to Dr Forsyth, Lord Denning, Lord Diplock and Wade were the architects of this new revolution in judicial/legal thinking. Lord Diplock observed that the creation of a comprehensive system of Administrative Law 'was the greatest achievement of the English courts in my judicial lifetime.' No one can dispute the fact that the writings of Wade and judgments of English judges paved the way for a huge body of tribunals wherein citizens could get relief against various executive decisions.

        Wade was the Founding Member of the Council of Tribunals and served this body from 1958 to 1971. It is said that his evidence before the Franks Committee had an important bearing on the development and role of tribunals.

        Wade had the distinction of holding chairs at both the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. From 1961 to 1976, he was the Professor of Law at the University of Oxford and was Rouse Ball Professor of English Law at the University of Cambridge from 1978 to 1982. At Cambridge, he was also the Master of Gonville and Caius College from 1976 to 1988.

        Sir Wade was made a Honorary Bencher of Lincoln's Inn in 1964 and was made Queen's Counsel in 1968. Further honours followed in 1969 when he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy and in 1985 he was conferred a knighthood for his services to administrative law.

        Wade came to India several times. In 1974, he came to Chennai to deliver the M Ct M Chidambaram Chettiar Lecture to an audience of 26,00 including eminent judges and lawyers. Lapsing into levity, Wade remarked that it would be quite sensational if his lectures at Oxford were equally popular! He came to India again in January 1992 to deliver the four Nambyar Lectures. The lectures were given at Bombay, Bangalore, Calcutta and Delhi and later published in a book titled Public Law in Britain and India.

        The four lectures were

        on the following topics:

        (i) Constitution - Bedrock or

        Quicksand?

        (ii) Judicial Review: The Foundation

        (iii) Judicial Review: New Horizons

        (iv) Government, Judiciary and

        Profession

        The professional services of Sir William Wade were often sought by several governments in the world to sort out volatile, tricky, sensitive and intractable public issues in the domain of Administrative Law. He was gentle, dignified and wholly uncompetitive. He was interested in the character of others and sensitive to their feelings, particularly of those who, like himself, wished to walk by themselves and found it difficult to fit in with established social patterns. He spoke to such people more easily, and defended them against the criticisms of those who thought them farouche or unattractive. Sir William Wade passed away on 12 March, 2004.