SC to deliver judgement on tribunal appointment rules

The Supreme Court on Wednesday will deliver its judgement on a batch of petitions, including one by former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh, challenging the constitutional validity of the Finance Act, 2017 and the rules framed under it, governing the appointment of presiding officers and members in various tribunals in the country.

The provisions were questioned on the ground that they gave more powers to the executive and interfered with the judicial independence of the panels.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices N V Ramana, D Y Chandrachud, Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna had on April 2 reserved the judgement in as many as 18 separate petitions.

The top court in February, 2018 virtually stayed the new law and the rules on tribunals, saying the appointments in tribunals like Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), National Green Tribunal (NGT) and Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) would be made under the old rules with some modifications.

Attorney General K K Venugopal had consented to it, since an interim arrangement was required to fill up posts of chairpersons, judicial, administrative and technical or expert members on all panels. The appointment for judicial and administrative member on the tribunals is made by a search-cum-selection committee headed by the CJI or his nominee.

Among the petitions was one by the Madras Bar Association, which sought a direction for the implementation of the directions issued by the Supreme Court in Union of India vs R Gandhi (2010) and L Chandra Kumar vs Union of India (1997), wherein the Ministry of Law and Justice was ordered to take over the administration of all tribunals created by Parliament and streamline their functioning.

Even though Attorney General said that the Ministry of Law and Justice was overburdened and may not be able to act and function as the nodal agency, the top court had said there cannot be any manner of doubt that to ensure the efficient functioning of tribunals, they should be brought under one agency.