Over- tribunalisation and Tribunal Reforms

At present, there are a large number of central tribunals (36 in number) leading to over- tribunalisation of dispensation of justice in the country. In a recent report, the law ministry stated that many of these 36 central tribunals are not working properly and to their optimum capacity. Many of them don’t have adequate infrastructure to carry out their mandate smoothly. The other key issues are as follows:

• Though tribunals were originally set up to provide speedy and specialized justice, a huge number of appeals from the tribunals have managed to enter into the High Courts and Supreme Court thus clogging the justice delivery system. This raises a doubt whether the tribunals are really achieving their mandates.
• Most tribunals face serious problem of adequate workforce. For example, work in many benches of Arms Force Tribunals is stopped because judicial members have not been appointed. Only 5 out of 17 branches are working.
• Over the years, reforms are periodically suggested regarding tribunals, such as changes recommended to the Armed Forces Tribunal Act made by the Standing Committee on Defence in 2012. However, these recommendations rarely see the light of day.
• Also there is a lack of information available on the functioning of tribunals. Websites of most tribunals either don’t exist or are not updated.

The issue of over-tribunalisation is under consideration of the Supreme Court also. In August 2016, the Supreme Court in a matter related to Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd versus Essar Power Ltd had commented on the inherent difficulties of many litigants as the bench of Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL) is located in Delhi. The Supreme Court asked the Law Commission to examine various aspects of working of tribunals and what changes are needed in the statutory framework governing them.

What India can learn from United Kingdom’s Legatt Committee?

Legatt Committee in United Kingdom was set up to study the working of Tribunals in that country because it had faced similar problem. It’s report recommended that tribunals should be brought together into a single system, administered by a new Tribunals Service. India can learn from this to at least handle the staffing problem at the tribunals. Also, there is a need to provide adequate infrastructure to tribunals to enable them carry out their statutory mandate.

Government’s Response

As a response to this issue, the Central government was mulling over to bring down to less than half the number of 36 existing tribunal and revamp over 680 organisations, including public sector undertaking under its control. The move is based on the recommendations of a Committee of Secretaries which has Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar and Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi as its members. The committee has proposed reduction of the number of tribunals from 36 to 17 and has sought reduction or restructuring of as many as 685 autonomous bodies or institutions during this year. There is possibility that government will merge two tribunals.