Acute staff crunch paralyses tribunal set up to ensure quick disposal of service matters

The Central Administrative Tribunal has 27 out of 64 posts lying vacant, leaving some benches without the requisite strength to assemble and hear cases.

The Central Administrative Tribunal headquarters in the national capital. | Photo: CAT website

New Delhi: The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), which aims to speed up adjudication of disputes in matters of recruitment and service conditions for government officers, is facing an acute shortage of members.

The tribunal has 18 benches across India, including the principal bench headed by its chairman in the national capital.

According to its official website, the sanctioned strength is 64 members — 32 judicial and 32 administrative members.

Under the law that governs CAT’s functioning, each bench should comprise two members — one judicial and one administrative or expert member. While judicial members are chosen from the legal profession, expert members are retired civil servants.

However, the website reveals that 27 out of 64 posts — 11 administrative and 16 judicial — are lying vacant, leaving some benches without the requisite strength to assemble in accordance with the law, to hear cases.

CAT has nearly 66,000 cases pending for decision, according to its website.

In an instance of this shortage, there are only five members (four judicial and one administrative) for the principal bench — where over 10,000 cases are pending — against the sanctioned strength of nine members (five judicial and four administrative).

Similarly, the Chandigarh bench has only one judicial member out of two, while both posts for administrative members remain unfilled. In Mumbai, the two judicial member post are vacant. On the administrative side, there is only one member.

Six retirements are also due this year, which will deepen the vacancy crisis in CAT.

CAT can’t function physically due to fewer members

In a notice issued on 26 March, CAT cited shortage of members as one of the reasons for not resuming physical hearings in the tribunal.

The notice said CAT is unable to open the tribunal for physical hearings due to “acute shortage of members”, besides the sudden rise in Covid-19 cases. ThePrint has a copy of the notice.

It also noted how the principal bench in Delhi is taking up cases of other benches, including Jammu and Allahabad.

Similarly, the Bangalore bench is handling the Chandigarh bench cases in afternoons and the benches in Lucknow and Cuttack are arranged by associating members from other benches.

“This facility may not be available in case the physical sittings are to be arranged,” the notice said.

Speaking to ThePrint about this crisis, advocate Ajesh Luthra, who is the secretary of the CAT Bar Association, said decisions are pending in cases filed way back in 2015.

“Time is an essential aspect in service law litigation. It is crucial for the person who goes to court either fighting for his promotion or monetary entitlements. If such a long time is taken to decide matters, then the purpose of filing a case is lost,” he said.

According to him, a few expert members were hired last year but not enough to fill up all the vacancies. Lack of sufficient judicial members is also a cause of worry, he added.

Litigation over rules a cause for delay

The delay in appointments is on account of a dispute over the rules that will determine the service conditions of tribunal members such as their salaries, perks and tenure of job, sources in CAT told ThePrint.

The conflict began in 2017 when the government amended the Finance Act and introduced changes pertaining to the structure and organisation of all tribunals, including CAT.

Since then, two rounds of litigation have taken place in the Supreme Court over the legality of these rules.

The first took place in 2018 when 17 petitions were filed against the notification of the Appellate Tribunal and Other Authorities (Qualification, Experience and Other Conditions of Service of Members) Rules 2017.

According to the petitioners, the Finance Act had tweaked the parent Acts for all tribunals — Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 for CAT — and it was improperly passed as a money bill.

The rules, according to the petitioners, allowed executive interference in the functioning of the tribunals.

A five-judge Supreme Court bench struck down the rules in November 2019 on the ground they did not conform with the principle of judicial dominance in appointments, while referring the question regarding the validity of the Finance Act to a larger bench.

It also directed the government to frame new rules in accordance with its judgment.

The fresh set of rules introduced in 2020 — Tribunal, Appellate Tribunal and other Authorities (Qualifications, Experience and other Conditions of Service of Members) Rules, 2020 (2020 Rules) — led to the second round of litigation with the petitioners claiming the rules had the same defects as the earlier one.

Exclusion of advocates from qualifying for the post of judicial members, fixing the tenure of a member to four years as against top court’s mandate to have term of at least five or seven years and making it a non-pensionable job were some the rules, among others, that were questioned.

However, the top court upheld the rules in November 2020 — with some modifications. But it disallowed the government to implement the rules retrospectively, and ordered their application from the date when they were notified, which was 12 February 2020.

It also directed constitution of the National Tribunals Commission to supervise the appointments and functioning of tribunals.

However, CAT sources quoted above said the government notified the Tribunal Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Ordinance 2021 last week with the intent to override this judgment. It provides for a shorter tenure for members of a tribunal.

One of the reservations against the rules notified on 5 April is that it limits the tenure of a chairperson or member in a tribunal to four years, whereas the top court order had fixed it at five.

Appointments for 2017 vacancies yet to be notified despite SC orders

In 2017, a high-powered selection committee, led by Supreme Court Justice A.M. Khanwilkar, had conducted interviews to finalise a list of successful candidates to fill up vacancies that arose.

This process began after an advertisement was issued in February 2018 and concluded in October 2019. The names were forwarded to the central government for issuing formal appointment orders.

“Since litigation over the 2017 rules had already begun in the apex court, the latter clarified that appointments in lieu of these vacancies would be as per the rules under the parent Act for CAT and not the ones under challenge,” said one of the sources quoted above.

However, while one judicial member, a retired Allahabad high court judge, who joined in October 2019, and eight administrative members, appointed in March 2020, were inducted according to the old rules, the government has kept quiet on the remaining selections for judicial members.

In response to a petition filed by CAT Bar Association that sought a direction to the government to clear those chosen by the Justice Khanwilkar panel, the government filed a status report admitting four names were pending with it. ThePrint has a copy of this report.

On an assurance by Attorney General K.K. Venugopal, the top court on 4 January this year directed the government to “expedite” the appointment to the four posts in accordance with the 2020 rules, subject to the modifications ordered by the SC.

However, three months later the appointments are yet to be made.

Luthra said CAT has moved a contempt petition before the apex court on this, adding that he hopes the issue won’t get embroiled in yet another round of litigation in wake of the new controversial rules.