SC expresses displeasure over not filling of vacancies in Tribunals

The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed its displeasure over non-filling up vacancies in tribunals, saying lack of timely action by the government affected their functioning.

"You keep creating a forum to take away work from the judiciary but you do not man them and then these tribunals come to a standstill," a bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, Sanjay Kishan Kaul, and B R Gavai told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta.

The bench directed that the term Justice Vinay Kumar Jain, as a judicial member in the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) be extended for a further period of three months from May 29, 2020, for the time being.

During the hearing, the court pointed out earlier it was trying to push for more judges' appointments in High Courts.

"There were problems like Collegium and the government were not on the same page, so a large number of recommendations do not go through. But what about the appointments that have been cleared. This cannot be allowed to continue," the bench said.

Senior advocate Parag Tripathi submitted that the appointments of the members in tribunals scheduled to retire should continue till new appointments were made.

He was arguing for an application pointing out that there were three vacancies in judicial members and four in non-judicial members in the NCDRC.

The bench said we will ask the Solicitor General to take instructions. "It is a perennial problem. Tribunal functioning has come to a standstill," the bench said.

Mehta said the interim order should continue. The larger problem is in all of these forums even administrative members or expert members or judicial members are not available, the bench said.

Mehta said he agreed it was a problem to be attended to. The court put the matter for consideration after six weeks.