Tribunals are here to stay, but with improvements

By Amit Kapur, J. Sagar Associates
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A constitution bench of the Supreme Court recently delivered its judgment relating to tribunalization of justice. This judgment has put to rest the existentialist challenges to this institutional development, embracing “tribunals” as a part of the justice delivery system while recommending ways of strengthening them. The majority opinion was authored by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi with justices Dhananjaya Chandrachud and Deepak Gupta giving concurring opinions.

The Supreme Court studied the evolution of tribunals globally and in India. Tribunals emerged around 1873 to deal with technically specialized trade disputes involving monopolistic railway companies. They have spread across sectors due to the need for specialization in complex commercial/technical issues – offering cheaper, speedier, and more accessible alternative means of dispute resolution. Tribunalization in India began in the 1940s with the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal. Justice Chandrachud described the genesis of tribunals as an answer to the challenges thrown up by the complexities of social and economic offerings.

tribunals
Amit Kapur
Managing partner
J. Sagar Associates

Certain aspects seem to have eroded the stature and efficacy of tribunals that are quasi-judicial in nature. These include the selection process, terms/entitlements, security of tenure and lack of autonomy (for creating and upgrading infrastructure; hiring of staff; computerization and other facilities). Courts have felt that where the subject matter does not involve any specialized technical expertise and knowledge, tribunals handling disputes must be staffed with judicial members with standing commensurate to the task at hand. Technical members must be appointed where justifiable but not to reduce the tribunals to sinecure for retiring loyal bureaucrats. In this context, superior courts often looked at tribunals/quasi-judicial authorities as somewhat inferior cousins. Further, due to the absence of a unifying statute, there is a lack of uniformity in over 40 statutory tribunals, commissions and authorities – each established under different enactments, bringing significant anomalies and distortions.

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Amit Kapur is a joint managing partner at J. Sagar Associates. The author’s views are personal and not attributable to the firm.

J. Sagar Associates
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Amit Kapur | Tel: +91 11 4937 0630
Email: amit@jsalaw.com
Website: http://www.jsalaw.com

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