Differences between Guwahati and Delhi Benches of Armed Forces Tribunal; Guwahati questions powers of AFT Chairperson

An interim stay order passed by the Chairperson of the Armed Forces Tribunal has raised questions of both judicial propriety and the procedures related to the functioning of different Benches of the tribunal. There are currently eight regional Benches of the AFT, including one in Guwahati with a Principal Bench in Delhi. And it is an order passed by the Principal Bench that has irked the Guwahati Bench..Last month, the Guwahati Bench was hearing a contempt petition filed by one Col. Mahender Singh Yadav against the Defense Secretary, RK Mathur. While these proceedings were taking place in Guwahati, Mathur approached the Principal Bench in Delhi, headed by Chairperson Justice Prakash Tatia. The Defense Secretary sought a transfer of the contempt proceedings to Delhi as well as interim relief..It was his argument that these proceedings ought to be heard in Delhi since the proceedings on whose basis the contempt petition arose, had already been transferred to Delhi..Agreeing to this, the Chairperson transferred the proceedings to Delhi and directed the proceedings before Guwahati to be stayed, via this order dated January 21, 2014. What is important to note here that the Chairperson passed the stay order alone, not the Principal Bench per se..The very next day, when the Guwahati Bench was informed of this order, it chose to express, in no uncertain terms, its strong disapproval of the stay order. Under Section 27 of the Armed Forces Tribunal Act, the Chairperson of the AFT is empowered to transfer any pending matter to another Bench..However, the Act does not allow the Chairperson to pass interim stay orders, especially while sitting singly and exercising purely administrative powers. By passing an interim stay, the Chairperson has exercised judicial powers that may not fall within the provisions of the AFT Act..It is this interim order that the Guwahati Bench, consisting of Justice HN Sarma and Cmde Mohan Phadke, has taken a strong objection to. In the order dated January 22, 20 the Bench states,.“As per the scheme of the AFT Act, a judicial order is required to be passed by the Division Bench only. The matter of transfer is an administrative job and this power is allowed to be exercised by the chairperson alone sitting singly. The scheme of the Act does not permit passing any judicial order interim or otherwise including an order of stay by the Chairperson sitting singly.”.One of the more obvious questions that arise in this situation is whether the Principal Bench can act as an appellate body over the other regional Benches. As things stand, the Chairperson is but the administrative head of the AFT, certainly not the judicial head. Furthermore, under the current scheme of things, an appeal from a decision of any Bench of the AFT lies directly to the Supreme Court and not to the Principal Bench. Which leads one to the next question, if there are indeed matters requiring an interpretation of the AFT Act, what is the appropriate forum for raising such questions?.For the time being though, it certainly doesn’t look like any of these questions shall be answered. Even after making these strongly worded observations for instance, the Guwahati Bench chose to respect the stay order and posted the matter to March 2014. The Bench deemed it wise to leave it to the parties concerned to challenge the order before “any appropriate forum”..Photo taken from here.