Comment on the need of administrative tribunals as compared to the court system. Assess the impact of the recent tribunal reforms through rationalization of tribunals made in 2021.

Why tribunals rather than only courts

Articles 323A and 323B authorise tribunals for Union and other disputes. The Central Administrative Tribunal was meant to spare High Courts a mountain of service cases. Tax, company, debt recovery, armed forces and environmental tribunals promised domain knowledge, fewer adjournments, and cheaper access. S.P. Sampath Kumar once spoke of them as effective substitutes. L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India (1997) restored judicial review under Articles 226 and 32: a tribunal can be the court of first instance, not the last.

The need remains where the subject is specialised and the volume is high. The failure has been vacancies, short tenures, executive-heavy selection, and poor infrastructure, which recreate delay with less independence.

The 2021 rationalisation

The Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021, following an ordinance, abolished several appellate tribunals (including film certification appellate, airports, and others named in the schedule) and sent their work to High Courts. It also restated search-cum-selection, four-year tenure, and a minimum age of 50 for many posts, in the teeth of earlier Madras Bar Association directions.

The Supreme Court in Madras Bar Association v. Union of India (2020 and 2021) had already struck or read down similar rules: short tenure and a high entry age shrink the pool of independent members; the Chief Justice’s writ in selection is not ornamental; tribunals discharging judicial work need security of tenure close to that of courts. The 2021 Act was a legislative second try at the same design. Parts of it were again invalidated. Rationalisation therefore achieved two different things at once: a smaller tribunal map, which High Courts must now absorb, and a running battle over who controls appointments.

Impact on the citizen is mixed. Some exotic appellate layers were little used and their death is no loss. Service and tax litigants still need a working CAT and tax tribunals. Dumping specialised appeals on already strained High Courts is not, by itself, access to justice.

The 2nd Administrative Reforms Commission wanted tribunals that look like courts in independence and like departments in efficiency. 2021 leaned toward the department.