The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought to know from the Centre within two weeks its view on bringing all the quasi-judicial bodies under one central umbrella body. The apex court said it does not like to be bogged down with what is right or wrong and all it wants is that "the tribunals work efficiently and independently".

 

This observation of the court came during the course of a Constitution Bench hearing the case filed by the Madras Bar Association on the issues plaguing Tribunals across India.

 

Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi headed the Bench, which also comprised Justices NV Ramana, DY Chandrachud, Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna.

 

Standing for the petitioner, Senior Advocate Arvind Datar pointed out that there are presently 93 Tribunals, including all quasi-judicial bodies. Gogoi stated that there are 36 major Tribunals which can be classified based on the subject matter they deal with.

The Bench also touched upon the expertise of persons heading these bodies. The CJI noted: “Often times, a person has worked in a certain area of law till the age of 58-59, and then suddenly they are appointed as members of a tribunal dealing with a whole different subject matter.”

 

He added “There is no dispute today that most of the tribunals are non-functional.”

A practical solution, in his view, was to have as few of them as possible.

 

Datar went on to highlight the problems Tribunals across the country are facing. He cited the example of the National Green Tribunal, which is only functioning in Delhi, despite having benches across the country. He also highlighted the lack of infrastructure and inadequate budgetary allocation to these bodies. He further submitted “Different Tribunals are administered by different administrating bodies. There is no uniformity on administration.”

 

After Datar concluded his submissions, Attorney General KK Venugopal began his arguments addressing the issue of vacancies, and submitted a report on the same to the Bench.

 

He then apprised the Court of the steps taken by the government in an attempt to fill vacancies in Tribunals. The steps taken included issuance of circulars, sending of applications to the Supreme Court as regards current vacancies, as well as anticipated vacancies, Venugopal submitted.

 

At this juncture, the Bench summoned Supreme Court Registrar PK Sharma, seeking details on the applications forwarded to the Court. After a brief discussion, it came to light that proposals for appointments to the Debts Recovery Tribunal and Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal were received three days ago.

 

After Venugopal concluded his arguments, the Bench asked the Centre to file an affidavit stating the procedure and time within which the Court’s previous order vis-a-vis Tribunals will be implemented. It was emphasised that the Central Administrative Tribunal, the Intellectual Property Appellate Board, the Armed Forces Tribunal, the National Green Tribunal and the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal require immediate attention.

 

The Court also stated that the earlier recommendations made with respect to the National Company Tribunal and National Company Appellate Tribunal be implemented within two weeks.