March 28, 2019:

On Wednesday, taking note of tribunals being starved of manpower & infrastructure for years, the Supreme Court expressed concern over the large number of vacancies in important tribunals and asked the Centre to fill them up in 2 weeks.

A constitution bench comprising of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice N V Ramana, Justice D Y Chandrachud, Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Sanjiv Khanna also asked the Centre why it had not yet implemented the SC’s 1997 judgment advising the Govt to bring tribunals under the Ministry of Law & Justice.

“There can't be any manner of doubt that to ensure the efficient functioning and to streamline the working of tribunals, they should be brought under one agency, as already felt and observed by this court in L Chandra Kumar judgment (of 1997). The court would like to have benefit of the Centre’s view by means of an affidavit of the competent authority to be filed within two weeks from today,” the bench ordered.

The Court said the alarming vacancy position in important tribunals like Central Administrative Tribunal, Intellectual Property Appellate Board, Armed Forces Tribunal, National Green Tribunal and the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal required urgent attention and assured that the CJI’s nominee Judges heading selection committees would expeditiously make recommendations to fill the posts.

“Such recommendations which have already been made by the search-cum-selection committee, as in the case of National Company Law Tribunal and National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, should be immediately implemented by making appointments within two weeks and the result thereof be placed before the court through an affidavit of the competent authority,” it ordered.

While hearing arguments on the mismanagement of tribunals, the CJI said, “The whole exercise is to bring uniformity in the service condition of members and chairpersons of tribunals to the extent possible and maintain the judicial character and independence of the tribunals.”

Justice Ramana talked about an interesting incident arising from the relaxation of eligibility criteria for lawyers to apply for the post of members of tribunals.

“For 10 posts for a tribunal, last year the CJI interviewed some 300 persons and I interviewed some 400 others this year. We cannot put stringent eligibility criteria as someone will go to high court and get a stay on recruitment and take the entire process for a ride. One of the applicants I interviewed owned a provision store and was also enrolled as an advocate for the last 30 years, which made him eligible to apply,” he said.

Chief Justice Gogoi said a “practical solution” would be to have “as few tribunals as possible.”

The Bench is hearing a batch of petitions, led by the Madras Bar Association, challenging the amendments in the Finance Act, 2017 which have modified the terms of appointment and functioning in various key statutory tribunals, including the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The petitioners allege that the amendments amount to dilution of judicial independence and a threat to the Constitution.

“There is no reason assigned for turning down recommendations of the selection committee,” the Chief Justice observed.

The CJI said the Centre should make it clear whether it wanted the tribunals to continue or not.

Justice Chandrachud said tribunals decide issues which are of extreme importance to the country. In the UK, there is a separate recruitment process for tribunals and it could be tried in India, he said.

Source Link

Source Link

Picture Source :