From Wednesbury To Proportionality: Rethinking Judicial Review Standards For AI- Assisted Administrative Action In India
- IJLLR Journal
- 2 hours ago
- 1 min read
Amrita Anand, Mallika SK & Rency Charles, School of Legal Studies, CMR University
ABSTRACT
The use of artificial intelligence in administrative decision-making presents a structural challenge to conventional standards of judicial review in India. The Wednesbury standard of unreasonableness, long the cornerstone of administrative law review, is demonstrably inadequate to scrutinise algorithmic action characterised by opacity, complexity, and statistical inference. India's Supreme Court has, through a series of landmark constitutional adjudications—most prominently Justice K S Puttaswamy v Union of India (2017) and Anuradha Bhatia v Union of India (2021)— accelerated a jurisprudential shift toward structured proportionality analysis. This article examines whether that transition provides a sufficiently robust framework for reviewing AI-assisted state action, or whether the peculiarities of machine learning demand a further doctrinal evolution. Drawing on comparative jurisprudence from the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United States, Germany, and France, the article argues that proportionality, as currently conceived in Indian constitutional law, requires supplementation by an algorithmic accountability doctrine that imposes obligations of explainability, human oversight, and ongoing auditing. The article proposes a five-stage proportionality matrix tailored to AI administrative contexts and calls for legislative intervention to fill the accountability lacunae left by judicial review alone.
Keywords: Wednesbury unreasonableness; proportionality; artificial intelligence; administrative law; judicial review; India; algorithmic accountability; due process
