How far do you agree with the view that tribunals curtail the jurisdiction of ordinary courts? In view of the above, discuss the constitutional validity and competency of the tribunals in India. (15).

How far tribunals curtail ordinary courts

• Articles 323A and 323B, inserted by the Forty-second Amendment, allow administrative tribunals and other tribunals and even speak of excluding the jurisdiction of all courts except the Supreme Court.
• In practice, CAT, SAT, ITAT, NGT, NCLT/NCLAT and similar bodies hear first-instance disputes that once went to High Courts or civil courts. That is a real curtailment of ordinary original jurisdiction.
• The gain claimed is expertise, fewer adjournments, and relief for a crowded High Court roster.
• The cost is forum shopping, uneven quality of members, and a citizen who must travel to a tribunal Bench instead of the local district court.
• Agreement with the view should therefore be partial: tribunals curtail ordinary original jurisdiction by design; they must not curtail constitutional jurisdiction.

Constitutional validity

• S.P. Sampath Kumar v. Union of India (1987) first treated a tribunal as a possible substitute for a High Court if independence and judicial character were secured.
• L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India (1997) is the controlling case. A seven-judge Bench held that judicial review by High Courts under Articles 226 and 227, and by the Supreme Court under Article 32, is part of the basic structure. A tribunal is a court of first instance; its orders are open to a Division Bench of the High Court.
• Exclusion clauses that try to shut out the High Court are therefore invalid even if 323A or 323B use the word “exclude”.
• Madras Bar Association cases on the National Tax Tribunal and later on appointments held that a tribunal which replaces a court must have a court-like independence: tenure, selection, and freedom from the parent ministry.
• Rojer Mathew v. South Indian Bank (2019) and later Tribunal Reforms litigation struck or read down rules that gave the Union excessive say in appointment and short tenure. Validity of the tribunal idea survived; invalidity attached to dependent, short-term Benches.

Competency

• Parliament is competent under Article 323A to make administrative tribunals for Union and State services, and under 323B, with States where the entry allows, to make tribunals on the listed fields (tax, industrial and labour, land reforms, urban ceiling, elections to the legislature except Parliament and State legislatures’ own elections in some clauses, and other named heads).
• Competency is also drawn from the relevant Seventh Schedule entries (for example tax, environment, company law) plus Articles 245–246.
• Competency does not include ousting Articles 32, 226 and 227, nor creating a tribunal that is an administrative wing of the ministry whose orders it reviews.
• The Law Commission and several Benches have asked for a National Tribunals Commission so that appointments, infrastructure and disciplinary control sit outside the parent department.

Balanced view

• Tribunals are constitutionally valid specialised first-instance courts, not a parallel judiciary that replaces High Courts.
• They curtail ordinary courts only in the narrow sense of original fact-finding; they fail the Constitution when they become a wall against judicial review or a parking place for post-retirement patronage.