Almost everyone learns this writ as one half of a couplet: prohibition is preventive, certiorari is curative. Then a question asks whether both can be issued in the same case, and the couplet falls apart, because a rule that neat suggests they’re rivals. They aren’t. Prohibition and certiorari are the same objection made at two different moments on the clock, and a High Court can issue both in one judgment about one proceeding. Once you see that the difference is timing and not substance, the whole topic collapses to a size you can hold. Prohibition is a superior court telling an inferior court or tribunal one thing: stop, you have no business hearing this.
What the writ of prohibition actually does
A writ of prohibition is an order from a superior court forbidding an inferior court or tribunal from continuing with a proceeding that lies outside its jurisdiction. The word comes from the Latin *prohibere*, to forbid, and forbidding is all it does. It’s the only one of the five writs that’s purely negative. Mandamus commands a body to act. Prohibition commands a body to stop acting. It never says who should win the case, never touches the merits, and never decides whether the claim in front of the tribunal is good or bad.
Two phrases carry the whole idea, so translate them once and keep them. Want of jurisdiction means the body never had power over this kind of matter at all: a Rent Controller taking up a murder trial has a want of jurisdiction. Excess of jurisdiction means the body did have power but has walked past its boundary: a forum with a money limit of Rs 50 lakh hearing a Rs 5 crore dispute has power over the subject, and no power over that dispute.
Think of it as pulling the cord on a train that’s running on the wrong line. Nobody on the platform is arguing about the destination or about who deserves a seat. The one question is whether this train should be on this track. The analogy breaks in a useful place, and this is the part worth noticing: stopping the train doesn’t cancel the journey. A competent forum can still hear the case tomorrow. Prohibition doesn’t end a dispute. It relocates it.
Here’s the worked example. Under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, as revised by the 2021 Rules, a District Commission can hear complaints where the consideration paid is up to Rs 50 lakh. Say you paid Rs 90 lakh for a flat, filed in the District Commission anyway, and the Commission started hearing it. The builder doesn’t have to sit through the whole case and then appeal. While the hearing is still live, the builder moves the High Court under Article 226 for prohibition, and the High Court forbids the District Commission from going any further. Notice what hasn’t been decided: nothing about the flat, nothing about the builder, nothing about you. Only that the wrong room was being used. That’s the entire output of this writ, and it’s smaller than most people expect. The types of writs sit together precisely because each one does one narrow job like this.
One rule about strength, because it’s counter-intuitive. In East India Commercial Co. Ltd. v. Collector of Customs (1962), the Supreme Court held that where the want of jurisdiction appears on the face of the proceedings, prohibition issues ex debito justitiae, as a matter of right rather than judicial discretion. And the party doesn’t lose it by having failed to object before the tribunal. So when the defect is obvious, the court isn’t weighing whether to help you. It’s obliged to.
Where the Constitution keeps it: Articles 32 and 226
Two doors, and for this writ they are not equally useful. Article 32(2) lets the Supreme Court issue directions, orders, or writs in the nature of habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, quo warranto, and certiorari, but only for the enforcement of a fundamental right. Article 226 gives every High Court the same writ power and adds four words that widen it: “for any other purpose.”
That asymmetry bites harder here than it does for habeas corpus. A tribunal wandering outside its pecuniary limit is usually trampling an ordinary legal right, not a fundamental one. No fundamental right, no Article 32. So the High Court is the real home of prohibition, and most of the case law you’ll read comes from Article 226 petitions rather than Article 32 ones.
Ujjam Bai v. State of Uttar Pradesh (1962) drew that line sharply. The Supreme Court held that where a quasi-judicial authority acts under a law that’s valid and simply misconstrues it, no fundamental right is violated, so Article 32 doesn’t lie. But flip one fact and the answer flips: if the law conferring the power is itself void, the authority never had power at all, and the proceeding is without jurisdiction from its first minute.
Notice the drafting phrase in both articles: “writs *in the nature of*.” It cuts Indian courts loose from the procedural ritual that grew around these writs in England, so a petition can’t be thrown out for getting an ancient form wrong. Substance over ceremony.
One more practical point that decides real cases. Courts usually tell writ petitioners to exhaust the statutory appeal first. In Whirlpool Corporation v. Registrar of Trade Marks (1998), the Supreme Court held that an alternative remedy isn’t an absolute bar where there’s a want of jurisdiction, a breach of natural justice, or a violation of a fundamental right. Those are exactly the grounds prohibition runs on, which is why “go and appeal” is a weaker answer against this writ than against most others.
Prohibition and certiorari: the same defect at two different moments
Prohibition stops a proceeding that’s still pending. Certiorari quashes an order that’s already been passed. Same defect, different position on the clock. Certiorari means “to be certified,” and the court literally calls up the record from the inferior body and quashes what’s on it.
So they aren’t alternatives. They’re stages of one problem, and they can both issue in the same case. Picture a tribunal without jurisdiction that has already passed an interim order and is still hearing the rest of the claim. The High Court can quash the interim order by certiorari and forbid the remaining hearing by prohibition, in a single judgment, on a single petition. Certiorari for what’s already been done. Prohibition for what hasn’t. That’s the whole secret, and it’s the sentence to reach for whenever the two are set against each other.
Push the clock to either end and one of them dies. Once the proceeding is completely over, prohibition is infructuous, because there’s nothing left to stop, and certiorari is your only remedy. Before any proceeding exists, neither lies, because there’s no live dispute to interfere with.
| Point of comparison | Prohibition | Certiorari |
|---|---|---|
| Literal meaning | “To forbid” | “To be certified” |
| When it’s issued | While the proceeding is still pending, before the final order | After an order has been passed |
| Nature | Purely preventive | Curative, and preventive of further action |
| What the court does | Forbids the inferior body from proceeding any further | Calls up the record and quashes the order |
| Grounds | Want or excess of jurisdiction, violation of natural justice, proceeding under an unconstitutional law | All of the above, plus an error of law apparent on the face of the record, and fraud |
| Issued against | Judicial and quasi-judicial bodies only | Judicial and quasi-judicial bodies, and administrative bodies affecting rights |
| It fails when | The proceeding is over or the final order is already passed | No order has been passed yet, so there’s nothing to quash |
| Both in one case? | Yes. Certiorari quashes the part already decided, prohibition forbids the part not yet reached | |
Read the “issued against” row twice, because that’s the one asymmetry between them. Certiorari has widened over the decades to reach administrative bodies whose decisions affect rights. Prohibition hasn’t. It’s still moored to judicial and quasi-judicial bodies, which makes it the narrower writ of the two despite the neat symmetry the couplet promises.
The other boundary is shared. In Syed Yakoob v. K.S. Radhakrishnan (1964), the Supreme Court held that certiorari corrects jurisdictional errors and errors of law apparent on the face of the record, and does not correct errors of fact, however wrong the finding. A writ court isn’t a second appeal. Prohibition inherits that limit and goes further, since it doesn’t even reach errors of law made *within* jurisdiction.
The grounds: when a court will actually forbid
Prohibition needs a defect of power, not a defect of reasoning. Four families of ground, and the fourth surprises people.
Want or excess of jurisdiction is the core. It comes in four flavours: subject matter (this body doesn’t hear this kind of case), pecuniary (the amount is above its ceiling), territorial (the matter arose outside its area), and over the person. In S. Govinda Menon v. Union of India (1967), the Supreme Court described the jurisdiction to grant prohibition as primarily supervisory, its object being to restrain courts or inferior tribunals from exercising a jurisdiction they don’t possess at all, or from exceeding the limits of the jurisdiction they do have. Supervisory, not appellate. Hold that word.
Violation of the principles of natural justice is the second, and the reasoning behind it is the part that trips everyone. Natural justice has two rules: *nemo judex in causa sua*, nobody is a judge in their own cause, and *audi alteram partem*, hear the other side. Now the move. Breaching them isn’t treated as merely getting the procedure wrong. It’s treated as stepping outside jurisdiction altogether, because a body that decides without hearing you, or through a member who’s an interested party, was never exercising the power the statute gave it. That’s why a natural-justice breach is a *jurisdictional* ground rather than a procedural complaint.
Make it concrete. A disciplinary authority is holding a departmental inquiry against an officer, and the presiding officer turns out to be the same person who filed the original complaint. The inquiry is still running. The officer doesn’t have to sit through it, collect a dismissal order, and then fight it through an appeal for the next six years. He moves the High Court for prohibition now, on the ground that a forum with an interested judge in the chair was never lawfully constituted to hear him at all. That’s what the timing buys: the writ arrives before the damage, which is the only real advantage it holds over an appeal.
A.K. Kraipak v. Union of India (1969) is the case to carry here, and the facts do the teaching. The acting Chief Conservator of Forests sat on the board selecting officers for the Indian Forest Service while being a candidate for selection himself. The Supreme Court set the selection aside and, more importantly for this topic, held that the line between administrative and quasi-judicial functions has thinned, and that natural justice applies to administrative action too.
Proceeding under an unconstitutional law is the third. If the statute conferring the power is void, the power never existed, so every step under it is without jurisdiction and prohibition follows automatically. Fraud, and a direct infringement of a fundamental right, round out the list.
Now the boundary, stated flat: a tribunal that has jurisdiction and gets the law wrong will not be stopped by prohibition. That’s an appeal, or at most certiorari once the order lands. Prohibition is about power, not correctness. Almost every wrong answer on this topic is a version of forgetting that sentence.
Against whom prohibition lies, and against whom it doesn’t
Judicial and quasi-judicial bodies only. Never administrative authorities, never legislative bodies, never private individuals. That’s the shortest and most heavily tested rule here.
Translate the middle term, since it does the work. A quasi-judicial body isn’t a court, but it decides disputes between parties by hearing them and applying law to facts. An Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, a Rent Controller, a Consumer Commission, an election tribunal, a disciplinary authority holding a departmental inquiry, and the various tribunals set up under statute all qualify. A minister sanctioning a road contract doesn’t. The quasi-judicial bodies framework is the vocabulary this writ runs on, and getting the category right is more than half the answer.
Province of Bombay v. Khushaldas S. Advani (1950) set the test: does the body have a duty to act judicially? There, the government’s decision to requisition premises was held to be administrative rather than quasi-judicial, so the writ didn’t lie. Kraipak later pressed hard on that classification, and in practice a body that must hear before it decides gets tested whatever the letterhead calls it. The label softened. The writ’s limit didn’t.
Direction matters too. Prohibition runs downward, from a superior court to an inferior one. A High Court can’t issue it to another High Court. And the Supreme Court can’t use it against a High Court’s judicial side either, because Naresh Shridhar Mirajkar v. State of Maharashtra (1966) held that judicial orders of a High Court aren’t amenable to Article 32. The word “inferior” is doing real work in the definition, not decorating it.
The hierarchy runs out at the top, too. Under Rupa Ashok Hurra v. Ashok Hurra (2002), no writ under Article 32 lies against a final judgment of the Supreme Court itself, which is why the Court had to invent the curative petition to reopen its own errors. There’s no court superior enough to forbid the Supreme Court, so the writ simply has nowhere to stand.
Where does the writ stop otherwise? It’s infructuous once the proceeding has ended or the tribunal has ceased to exist. It doesn’t reach a private arbitral tribunal the parties chose by contract, because the power in that room comes from an agreement rather than from the state. It won’t reweigh evidence. It won’t fix an error made inside jurisdiction. And delay can sink it, because a petitioner who watches a tribunal hear a case for two years and then discovers a jurisdictional objection is asking a court to reward patience it didn’t earn.
How to study and remember this
Anchor everything on one sentence: prohibition tests power, not correctness, and only while the clock is still running. Nearly every rule is a consequence of it. It’s preventive because the proceeding is alive. It lies only against judicial and quasi-judicial bodies because there has to be a *proceeding* to stop. It isn’t an appeal because appeals are about correctness. Certiorari is the same test read after the order lands. Learn the sentence, derive the rest, and stop memorising a list.
Then run a two-question drill on any scenario you’re given. First: is this body a court, or a body under a duty to decide judicially? If no, prohibition is out, no matter how badly it behaved. Second: is the proceeding still alive? If no, it’s certiorari, not prohibition. If part is alive and part is decided, it’s both. Those two questions answer more scenario questions on this writ than any amount of case-by-case reading.
Keep the case list to five and let them each do one job. East India Commercial for prohibition as a writ of right where the want of jurisdiction is patent. S. Govinda Menon for the supervisory nature and the want-or-excess formula. Khushaldas Advani for the duty-to-act-judicially test. Kraipak for natural justice and the blurring of the administrative line. Syed Yakoob for the rule that a writ court doesn’t touch errors of fact. Everything else is decoration.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the writ of prohibition in simple terms?
It’s an order from a superior court telling an inferior court or tribunal to stop hearing a case it has no jurisdiction over. The word means “to forbid.” It doesn’t decide who wins, doesn’t touch the merits, and doesn’t fix mistakes. It only stops a body from going further where it lacks the power to act.
Under which articles can a writ of prohibition be filed in India?
Under Article 32 before the Supreme Court, and Article 226 before a High Court. Article 32 works only where a fundamental right is at stake, which is often not the case with a jurisdictional overreach. Article 226 is wider, covering fundamental rights “and any other purpose,” so most prohibition petitions go to a High Court.
What’s the difference between prohibition and certiorari?
Timing. Prohibition is issued while the proceeding is still pending and forbids the body from continuing. Certiorari is issued after an order has been passed and quashes it. Prohibition is purely preventive; certiorari is curative as well. Both can be issued in the same case, prohibition for the part not yet decided and certiorari for the part already decided.
Can prohibition and certiorari be issued together?
Yes. Where a tribunal without jurisdiction has already passed an order and is still hearing the rest of the matter, a High Court can quash the order by certiorari and forbid the remaining proceedings by prohibition, in one judgment.
Against whom can the writ of prohibition be issued?
Only against judicial and quasi-judicial bodies. It doesn’t lie against administrative authorities, legislative bodies, or private individuals. This is where it differs from certiorari, which has widened to reach administrative bodies whose decisions affect rights.
What are the grounds for the writ of prohibition?
Want or excess of jurisdiction, violation of the principles of natural justice, and a proceeding under a law that’s unconstitutional. Fraud and a violation of a fundamental right also work. An error of law made *within* jurisdiction is not a ground, and neither is an error of fact.
Is prohibition a discretionary writ?
Not always. In East India Commercial Co. Ltd. v. Collector of Customs (1962), the Supreme Court held that where the want of jurisdiction appears on the face of the proceedings, prohibition issues ex debito justitiae, as a matter of right. The petitioner also doesn’t lose the writ by having failed to object before the tribunal.
Does the existence of an appeal bar a prohibition petition?
Usually a court sends you to the statutory appeal first, but not here. Whirlpool Corporation v. Registrar of Trade Marks (1998) held that an alternative remedy isn’t an absolute bar where there’s a want of jurisdiction, a breach of natural justice, or a violation of a fundamental right, which are precisely the grounds prohibition runs on.
Practice Questions
1. The writ of prohibition literally means:
a) We command
b) You may have the body
c) To forbid
d) By what authority
Answer: c) To forbid
2. Which statement about prohibition and certiorari is correct?
a) Both can be issued only after the final order is passed
b) Prohibition is issued after the order and certiorari before it
c) Prohibition is issued while the proceeding is pending, certiorari after an order has been passed
d) They can never both be issued in the same case
Answer: c) Prohibition is issued while the proceeding is pending, certiorari after an order has been passed
3. The writ of prohibition can be issued against:
a) Administrative authorities only
b) Judicial and quasi-judicial bodies only
c) Legislative bodies and their committees
d) Private individuals and public authorities alike
Answer: b) Judicial and quasi-judicial bodies only
4. In which case did the Supreme Court hold that where the want of jurisdiction is apparent on the face of the proceedings, prohibition issues as a matter of right?
a) Syed Yakoob v. K.S. Radhakrishnan (1964)
b) East India Commercial Co. Ltd. v. Collector of Customs (1962)
c) A.K. Kraipak v. Union of India (1969)
d) Naresh Shridhar Mirajkar v. State of Maharashtra (1966)
Answer: b) East India Commercial Co. Ltd. v. Collector of Customs (1962)
5. Which of the following is NOT a ground for issuing the writ of prohibition?
a) Want of jurisdiction
b) Excess of jurisdiction
c) An error of fact made within the tribunal’s jurisdiction
d) Violation of the principles of natural justice
Answer: c) An error of fact made within the tribunal’s jurisdiction
Mains-style questions
1. “Prohibition tests power, not correctness.” Explain this statement with reference to the grounds on which the writ is issued and the bodies against which it lies.
2. Distinguish between the writs of prohibition and certiorari. Can both be issued in respect of the same proceeding? Give reasons.
3. Examine why the writ jurisdiction of the High Courts under Article 226 is the more practical route for a writ of prohibition than Article 32 of the Constitution.
4. “A violation of natural justice is a jurisdictional defect, not a procedural lapse.” Discuss this proposition with reference to A.K. Kraipak v. Union of India and the scope of the writ of prohibition.
5. Certiorari has widened over time to reach administrative bodies affecting rights, while prohibition has not. Critically examine the consequences of this asymmetry for the supervisory jurisdiction of the higher judiciary.
The writ is worth respecting for what it refuses to do. It won’t tell a tribunal it’s wrong, won’t rescue a party from a bad case, and won’t shorten a queue. It asks one question about power and then either forbids or walks away. That restraint is what makes it fast, and speed is the only thing prohibition has to offer that an appeal doesn’t. A jurisdictional objection heard three years later, after the tribunal has finished, has cost the parties everything the writ was designed to save them. So the honest way to read prohibition isn’t as a shield against bad decisions. It’s a rule about who gets to decide, enforced early enough to matter, and the “early enough” is the part that has to be fought for in practice rather than assumed from the textbook.
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