Tribunals are meant to deliver faster justice. However, a recent law ministry assessment reveals that these specialised quasi-judicial bodies are reeling with a huge pendency of over 5.24 lakh cases, largely attributed to huge vacancies for members. The Debt Recovery Tribunal and its appellate body together have the highest pendency of 2.5 lakh cases, followed by Customs & Excise Appellate Tribunal with 72,000 pending cases. Others with high pendency include I-T Appellate Tribunal (43,000 cases); Central Administrative Tribunal (69,000 cases), State Administrative Tribunals (28,940 cases); Armed Forces Tribunal (6,900 cases); & NGT (5,301 cases).
Tribunals reel under 5L case pendency
Tribunals were constituted to address backlogs and deliver faster justice. However, a latest law ministry assessment reveals that these specialised quasi-judicial bodies are reeling with a huge pendency of over 5.2 lakh cases, largely attributed to huge vacancies for members.
The Debt Recovery Tribunal and its appellate body together have the highest pendency of 2.5 lakh cases, followed by the Customs & Excise Appellate Tribunal with 72,000 pending cases. The others with high pendency include the I-T Appellate Tribunal (43,000 cases); Central Administrative Tribunal (69,000 cases), State Administrative Tribunals (28,940 cases); Armed Forces Tribunal (6,900 cases); and National Green Tribunal (5,301 cases), the ministry said.Seven tribunals are functioning without a chairperson, according to a law ministry statement before Parliament last week. The tribunals without a chairperson include Central Govt Industrial Tribunal, Customs and Excise Appellate Tribunal and Appellate Tribunal for SFEMA, Debt Recovery Tribunal and Debt Recovery Appellate Tribunal, Railway Claims Tribunal and Armed Forces Tribunal. At least 18% of posts for Members of many of these tribunals are vacant – 93 posts vacant as against a sanctioned strength of 518, according to the Union law ministry.“In view of the nature and kind of cases, their complexity, stage-wise procedures involved, repeated re-hearings and other operational variables involved in final adjudication of cases being handled by each of the Tribunals, such a computation causes significant variation in the overall time frame,” law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said in a written response to a question in Rajya Sabha on Dec 4.The minister said that the govt has been making all efforts to adhere to timelines for filling vacancies in Tribunals. “The occurring of vacancies and filling them is a continuous ongoing process. To facilitate expeditious disposal of cases in tribunals, govt is taking all necessary steps as per the Acts and provide for indicating timeline within which appeal should preferably be disposed of,” Meghwal added.In addition, various measures are being undertaken by the tribunals for speedy disposal of pending cases, which include using technology through hybrid court & e-court, capacity building of members, prioritising cases of senior citizens, scrutinising and identifying cases covered by decisions of HCs, Supreme Court, search and seizure matters, for posting and out-of-turn hearing.
