UNPRECEDENTED MOVE

Using powers conferred on it under Article 142, the Supreme Court ordered existing members of the Central Administrative Tribunal to continue even after their tenures end. The Article can be used to do 'complete justice' in any case pending before the Court

- Vivek K Agnihotri

ON May 13, 2022, using its omnibus powers under Article 142 of the Constitution of India, the Supreme Court in an unprecedented step ordered that existing judicial and administrative members of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) should keep working even after the end of their tenure. This is to keep the Tribunal, which is crippled by 60% vacancies, functional.

The Court observed that CAT was created in 1985 to adjudicate service-related grievances of central government employees. It had started with a pendency of 13,500 cases, transferred from various High Courts and subordinate courts, but this has since crossed 50,000 cases. What made matters worse was the fact that out of the 69 sanctioned strength of members in 19 benches of CAT across the country, only 29 were in place.

The order of the Supreme Court was not a bolt from the blue. One could see it coming, given the previous encounters. On March 24, 2022, expressing concern over a large number of vacancies in several tribunals, many of which were working headless and not able to take up cases, the Supreme Court had observed that if the government did not want tribunals, they should be abolished. This observation had come in the context of a PMLA tribunal in Delhi which could not hold any hearing for over two years as the posts of chairman and members were vacant. A month earlier, in February 2022, the Supreme Court had expressed ire over a government move to introduce a statute on key tribunals merely days after the Court had struck down an identical law. This amounted to dishonoring the Court’s judgment.