Tribunals in India need to be strengthened: SC
The Supreme Court on Monday said that tribunals in the country need to be strengthened to ensure litigants continue to have faith in its adjudication as it set out to examine the issues ailing them.
The Supreme Court on Monday said that tribunals in the country need to be strengthened to ensure litigants continue to have faith in its adjudication as it set out to examine the issues ailing them.
The bench, headed by justice Surya Kant, said, “There needs to be an effective modicum in place as we need to strengthen the tribunal mechanism so that litigants have confidence in it.”
Hearing a challenge to the constitutional validity of the Tribunal Reforms Act, 2021, the bench., also comprising justice N Kotiswar Singh, flagged several issues of service conditions and tenure of judicial members besides vacant posts prevalent with the functioning of tribunals.
The bench said that the recruitment of new members to central tribunals is a process that is handled by a committee headed by a Supreme Court judge. But, other issues such as service conditions, recruitment of support staff, tenure of members, fall within the consideration of the central government, it added.
Justice Kant, who is the head of the committee appointing members of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) shared one such concern about the work in NCLT being handled by staff employed on a contract basis to handle the files.
“If tomorrow, someone takes away the files and does not return it, remember these are cases involving thousands and crores of rupees. How can you entrust these persons with original records. These are sensitive issues. If we have unknown staff there, how do we trust them. Why not have somebody on deputation? At least they will be responsible people,” he said.
Attorney General R Venkataramani, appearing for the Centre, said that the 2021 Act is working itself out and the court may consider taking up the matter next year to see how this experiment works. He informed the court that except for two or three tribunals, there are hardly any vacancies in tribunals.
Dealing with a related issue of tenure, the bench pointed out that in the present appeal challenging the 2021 Act, three members of the Central Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) have filed intervention applications as the four-year tenure under the 2021 law curtails their tenure till 62 years.
Sharing concern on this issue, the bench told AG, “Good candidates are not coming forward to join. We requested retired judges, but they are declining because of conditions of service.”
The court also heard an application by a judicial member of Armed Forces Tribunal –– justice DC Chaudhary, transferred from the Chandigarh bench to Kolkata in 2023, who now sought to be stationed at Chandigarh with just days to go for his retirement.
The bench, while highlighting the problem of getting retired judges to work coupled with the move to transfer them, said, “You (Centre) should not consider them as ministerial staff. Let him not take up any matters in Chandigarh. On transfer and posting, we need to strengthen the mechanism.”
AG pointed out that there existed a valid reason for his transfer and wondered why he was seeking to return to Chandigarh. The bench asked him to consider the desirability of shifting him to Chandigarh and even directed the AG to take instructions on the tenure of the CESTAT judicial members.
Senior advocate Arvind Datar assisting the court on behalf of the petitioner, the Madras Bar Association, submitted that the 2021 Act has retained much of the provisions that were struck down by the top court while scrutinising the laws governing tribunals.
He pointed out some practical difficulties faced by members who get a four-year tenure in a specialised tribunal like Income Tax Appeallate Tribunal and after this period, do not get to practice before the tribunal. Even in the case of GST tribunal, he pointed out that the top court had struck down minimum age criteria of 50 years for appointment that has been reintroduced in the 2021 law.
The bench said, “Other than validity of the Act, there are broad issues that will have to be considered on tenure, qualification for appointment, matter of posting members, etc. We need to get a comprehensive chart on all tribunals. We may take up these matters once every two weeks.”
Posting the matter on March 26, the court said, “We have impressed on the petitioners to tabulate all issues which are unique to any tribunal or common to all tribunals.”
The issue concerning the functioning of tribunals has been engaging the attention of the top court over several years. Recently, in January this year, the court directed Centre to furnish data on vacancies across all tribunals. This data is expected to be released in four weeks.
