Mounting vacancies in law tribunals are affecting litigation. Image used for representational purposes.
Graphic: Aroop Mishra/The Quint
On Firiday, 6 August, the Chief Justice of India NV Ramana-led bench of the Supreme Court pulled up the central government for the rising number of vacancies in various law tribunals across the country. The bench asked the centre to "clear its stand" on the urgent need to fill these vacancies.
The Supreme Court has also warned that if the Centre fails to present an answer soon, top officials will be summoned before the court in person.
The problem of inadequate number of judicial officers at tribunals across India has not only irked the apex court but has also made litigation before such tribunals a herculean task.
During the proceedings on Friday, CJI Ramana quoted data retrieved by the Supreme Court's registry, revealing the total number of vacancies – 20 presiding officers, 110 judicial members, and 111 Technical members – still pending across all tribunals.
Vacancies in tribunals across India
The apex court refused to accept the reasons presented by the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta as the only causes behind pending vacancies.
The court needs tough answers, and actual action being taken, it will not settle for nothing else. It very categorically told the central government that it will not let the people remain "remediless".
Rising vacancies at tribunals have severely impacted the adjudication of cases and the pursuit of justice.
The purpose of having multiple benches of the same tribunal is nullified. Due to rising vacancies, benches are sitting only once or twice a week which has resulted in piling up of pending cases. For instance, National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) matters from Jaipur are being handled by a bench in Chandigarh, which already has cases from four states and one UT falling under its jurisdiction.
Lawyers informed The Quint that the situation has gone from bad to worse at the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) and Real Estate Regulatory Authority Tribunal (RERA).
Suchindran BN, an advocate practising in tribunals as well as the Madras High Court, told The Quint that vacancies allow backlog to increase. The workload of many of the benches have doubled, which results in "mechanical" adjournment of cases due to paucity of time.
The perspective of the lawyers appearing before the tribunal and that of the Supreme Court converge at one point — the process needs more streamlining.
Advocate on Record (AOR) Talha Abdul Rahman goes a step further and recommends that vacancies at tribunals should be filled up through competitive exams.
Rahman believes that vacancies pile up often due to disagreement with the names suggested or agreed upon by the judicial side. There can be several rounds of back and forth correspondence on this. Some judges may see this as uninteresting administrative work and things may remain pending at their end as well. Therefore, he moots a "single-window" system for making appointments to tribunals.
Now, the central government has a week's deadline to respond to the strict questions posed by the Supreme Court. The matter will next be taken up for hearing on 16 August.
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