New Delhi: The Supreme Court said Monday the Centre was testing its ‘patience’ and ‘emasculating’ tribunals by not appointing officials to the quasi-judicial bodies. These judicial bodies are facing severe crunch of presiding officers as well as judicial and technical members. The Supreme Court sought action on the matter by September 13. The Supreme Court however, asserted that it did not want any confrontation with the government. A special bench headed by Chief Justice NV Ramana asked the Centre to make some appointments to the tribunals before next Monday. There are around 250 posts lying vacant at various key tribunals and appellate tribunals such as NCLT, DRT and TDSAT.
“You (Centre) are emasculating the tribunals by not making the appointments,” said the bench, also comprising Justices DY Chandrachud and L Nageswara Rao.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta requested the bench to adjourn hearing due to non-availability of Attorney General KK Venugopal due to personal issues.
“No, sorry. Last time, we had made it very clear. We have set up this special bench of two senior judges by disturbing two regular benches. They had earlier heard these matters and passed detailed judgements,” the CJI said.
“There is no respect for the judgements of this court. This is what we are feeling. You are testing our patience. Last time, you made a statement that some persons have been appointed. Where are they appointed,” CJI Ramana asked.
Mehta said these appointments were made in Central Administrative Tribunals. He shared information from the Finance Ministry on the new Tribunals Reforms Act and the rules to be framed under it.
“The government will ensure that within the next two weeks, a decision on appointments to all the tribunals, where the search and selection committee has already recommended names for appointments,” the Supreme Court bench.
The court took note of the submissions and adjourned the hearing on a batch of pleas pertaining to the vacancies at the tribunals and the new law for further hearing September 13.
“We hope the appointments will be made by then. It seems you are bent upon not respecting the judgement of the court… We have only three options left, one is staying the legislation or whatever the Act that you have made and directing you to go ahead with the appointments, or close down these tribunals and give the powers to high courts to take up these matters, and third is we ourselves will appoint the people. We may consider initiating contempt proceedings,” the CJI said.
“We do not want confrontation with the government and we are happy with the way the nine Supreme Court judges were appointed. The entire legal fraternity appreciated this, but what about these tribunals? These are small tribunals. Some of them are very good like NGT, CAT, consumer commissions, NCLT. No chairpersons, no presidents, nothing…They are collapsing. Why are you so particular about these tribunals, we do not understand,” the bench asked.
Mehta said the government does not want any confrontation either.
The bench asked the Centre to apprise it of alternative proposals, if any and whether it wanted these quasi-judicial bodies. It said some panels headed by judges had made some recommendations 18 months ago under the then existing laws to which the government cannot have any objection.
“Still, virtually no appointments were made… Some tribunals are on the verge of closing down. Some of them are functioning with one member, they are on the verge of extinction. We can understand that there was some law which was in the offing and the Centre was saying it will make appointments according to it, but these were recommendations made strictly in accordance with the law as it existed then,” the apex court bench said.
“These tribunals are critical to the economy. They are the cornerstone of the government’s policy for reconstruction and rehabilitation of the corporate sector. Because of the vacancies, NCLT and NCLAT cannot dispose of matters… There is an outer limit of 330 days for completing the corporate insolvency resolution process,” it pointed out.
