'Govt exploring ways to bring in tribunals under one ministry'

The government is exploring the possibility of bringing in different tribunals under administrative control of one ministry for better administration, a top official said today.
Law Secretary P K Malhotra said the government has constituted several appellate tribunals in many areas including indirect taxes, central administrative tribunal and debt recovery tribunal and "a time has come to review whether functions of these tribunals can be clubbed together and put under the administrative control of one ministry for better administration".
He was speaking at the platinum jubilee celebrations of Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) here.
A constitution bench, the secretary said, had suggested the government to think about bringing tribunals under administrative control of the Ministry of Law and Justice.

He said that the "government is working in that direction (bringing tribunals under one ministry) and we are likely to come up with concrete proposals in this regard".
Last year, the Law Ministry had issued reminders to all central ministries and departments to give details of the number of tribunals working under them. It had also sought a response on how many of them can be merged to bring down their number.

From nearly 37 tribunals, Law Ministry plans to bring down the number to 15 as several are performing identical functions.
There are nearly 37 tribunals functioning in the country dealing with subjects such as income tax, electricity, consumer protection, company laws and railway accidents.

Malhotra also said that as much as Rs 3 lakh crore of revenue is locked up in tax tribunals and there is a need to streamline the procedure for speedy disposal of disputes "so that revenue is not blocked in litigation".
Further he said that although the tribunals were constituted to expedite adjudication, they started following the procedures of the courts, specially with regard to evidence, leading to delays in disposing the cases.
The Secretary said that the ITAT should introspect about the improvements required for quick disposal of pending cases.
Speaking on the occasion, Minister for Law and Justice D

V Sadananda Gowda said that in India the adjudication of administrative disputes has been commented by the judiciary through various cases placed before it over a period of time.
"While the matter seems to be put to rest with Supreme Court's 1997 famous decision in L Chandra Kumar's case, the debate has not ended yet and much remains to be debated in the context of working, independence and efficacy of the tribunals," he said.
There have been many success stories of the tribunals, yet there have been instances of "delays and favouritism" as well though the courts have consistently held that these bodies must maintain procedural safeguards while arriving at their decisions and observe principles of natural justice, Gowda added.

About the criticism of the tribunalisation of justice from some quarters, the minister said increasing tribunalisation has been criticised as an encroachment on the judiciary's independence and contrary to the constitutional scheme of the separation of powers between judiciary and executive.
"The other concern has been that though they were supposed to address the issue of delays and pendency in the existing judicial system, they seem to be bogged down with the same problems. Also, it is alleged that the tribunals lack independence and are no better than the administrative arm of the ministries," he said.
The minister said within the four walls of judicial review, the tribunals carry a great responsibility of not only resolving disputes but also exhibiting higher standards of performance as mostly the tribunals have been reviewing or overseeing appeals from the actions of the administration.

Gowda said: "We must recognise the intrinsic link between the simpler tax dispute resolution mechanism and the effect it has on overall economic growth of a country".
ITAT President Justice (Retd) Dev Darshan Sud said that the pendency of cases has come down to about 95,000 from earlier over one lakh.
He said that soon the ITAT would introduce e-filing and introduce an application which is dedicated to the tribunal.
ITAT has started e-court at Nagpur and successfully connected Ahmadabad and before the end of February, Jabalpur would be linked to Delhi and Guwahati with Kolkata, he added.
He also sought support of the Finance Minister in modernising the infrastructure of Delhi and Mumbai offices.