When a legislature is given plenary power to legislate on a particular subject, there must also be an implied power to make laws incidental to the exercise of such power. It is a fundamental principle of constitutional law that everything necessary to the exercise of a power is included in the grant of the power.
A legislature cannot certainly strip itself of its essential functions and vest the same on an extraneous authority. The primary duty of law-making has to be discharged by the legislature itself but delegation may be reported to as a subsidiary or ancillary measure.
“The Legislature cannot delegate its function of laying down legislative policy in respect of a measure and its formulation as a rule of conduct. The legislature must declare the policy of the law and the legal principles which are to control and given cases and must provide a standard to guide the officials or the body in power to execute the law.”
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Therefore the extent to which delegation is permissible is well settled. The Legislature cannot delegate its essential legislative policy and principle and must afford guidance for carrying out the said policy before it delegates its delegates its subsidiary powers in that behalf.
The guidance may be sufficient if the nature of thing to be done and the purpose for which it is to be done are clearly indicated. The case of Harishanker Bagla v. State of Madhya Pradesh, A.I.R. 1954 S.C. 465: (1955) 1 S.C.R. 380 is an instance of such legislation.
The policy and purpose may be pointed out in the section conferring the powers and may even be indicated in the preamble or elsewhere in the Act.