Orders of constitutional courts would prevail over statutory tribunals: SC

Orders of constitutional courts would prevail over statutory tribunals: SC

Subject: Polity

Section: Judiciary

Context: The Supreme Court on Wednesday set aside a National Green Tribunal (NGT) order prohibiting construction work at Rushikonda hills in Visakhapatnam, saying orders of constitutional courts would prevail over statutory tribunals

Concept:

The Supreme Court said the NGT is subordinate to the high court in so far as territorial jurisdiction is concerned. The conflicting orders passed by the NGT and the High Court would lead to an anomalous situation. The authorities would be faced with difficulty as to which orders to follow. In such a case, orders from the Constitutional Court would prevail over statutory tribunals.

Supreme Court on Tribunals in L Chandra Kumar case:

The constitutional safeguards which ensure the independence of the Judges of the superior judiciary are not available to the Judges of the subordinate judiciary or to those who man Tribunals created by ordinary legislations. Consequently, Judges of the latter category can never be considered full and effective substitutes for the superior judiciary in discharging the function of constitutional interpretation. We, therefore, hold that the power of judicial review over legislative action vested in the High Courts under Articles 226 and in this Court under Article 32 of the Constitution is an integral and essential feature of the Constitution, constituting part of its basic structure. Ordinarily, therefore, the power of High Courts and the Supreme Court to test the constitutional validity of legislations can never be ousted or excluded.

Tribunals have been created both as substitutes to High Courts and as subordinate to High Courts .In the former case, appeals from the decisions of Tribunals (such as the Securities Appellate Tribunal) lie directly with the Supreme Court.  In the latter case (such as the Appellate Board under the Copyright Act, 1957), appeals are heard by the corresponding High Court.

• Tribunal is a quasi-judicial institution that is set up to deal with problems such as resolving administrative or tax-related disputes.
• It performs a number of functions like adjudicating disputes, determining rights between contesting parties, making an administrative decision, reviewing an existing administrative decision and so forth.
• A Tribunal, generally, is any person or institution having an authority to judge, adjudicate on, or to determine claims or disputes – whether or not it is called a tribunal in its title.

• Tribunals were not part of the original constitution; it was incorporated in the Indian Constitution by 42^ndAmendment Act, 1976.
• Article 323-Adeals with Administrative Tribunals.
• Article 323-Bdeals with tribunals for other matters.
• Under Article 323 B, the Parliament and the state legislatures are authorised to provide for the establishment of tribunals for the adjudication of disputes relating to the following matters:
  • Taxation
  • Foreign exchange, import and export
  • Industrial and labour
  • Land reforms
  • Ceiling on urban property
  • Elections to Parliament and state legislatures
  • Food stuff
  • Rent and tenancy rights
• Articles 323 A and 323 B differ in the following three aspects:
• While Article 323 A contemplates the establishment of tribunals for public service matters only, Article 323 B contemplates the establishment of tribunals for certain other matters (mentioned above).
• While tribunals under Article 323 A can be established only by Parliament, tribunals under Article 323 B can be established both by Parliament and state legislatures with respect to matters falling within their legislative competence.
• Under Article 323 A, only one tribunal for the Centre and one for each state or two or more states may be established. There is no question of the hierarchy of tribunals, whereas under Article 323 B a hierarchy of tribunals may be created.

Central Administrative Tribunal

• It has jurisdiction to deal with service matters pertaining to the Central Government employees or of any Union Territory, or local or other government under the control of the Government of India, or of a corporation owned or controlled by the Central Government.
• The CAT was set-up on 1 November 1985.
• It has 17 regular benches, 15 of which operate at the principal seats of High Courts and the remaining two at Jaipur and Lucknow.
• These Benches also hold circuit sittings at other seats of High Courts. The tribunal consists of a Chairman, Vice-Chairman and Members.
• The Members are drawn, both from judicial as well as administrative streams so as to give the Tribunal the benefit of expertise both in legal and administrative spheres.
• The appeals against the orders of an Administrative Tribunal shall lie before the Division Bench of the concerned High Court.

State Administrative Tribunal

• Article 323 B empowers the state legislatures to set up tribunals for various matters like levy, assessment, collection and enforcement of any of the tax matters connected with land reforms covered by Article 31A.