Supreme Court direction on formation of National Tribunals Commission, Tribunal Wing ought to be implemented expeditiously: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has urged the Central government to expeditiously implement the Supreme Court judgment of November 27, 2020 directing the formation of National Tribunals Commission to supervise the appointments to and functioning of tribunals (R Subramanian vs UOI)..The observation was made by a single-judge Bench of Justice Prathiba M Singh in view of the fact that it has been more than three months since the Supreme Court judgment was delivered. ."It only needs to be emphasised that the directions given by the Supreme Court ought to be implemented expeditiously by the Respondent – Authorities," the High Court said..The High Court was dealing with a petition seeking various reliefs in respect of the functioning of the NCLT and constitution/appointment of its various benches..Petitioner, advocate R Subramanian, argued that the appointments to the NCLT and NCLAT were considerably delayed..In spite of heavy case load, there were only nineteen judicial members and twenty-two technical members across all NCLTs in the country, it was submitted. .The petitioner thus sought a direction to the Central government to forthwith assess the requirement of the number of tribunals, based on analysis of the relevant variables including the case filing load and the planned disposal times..In response, the Central government stated that the issues raised by the petitioner had already been covered by the Supreme Court in its November 2020 judgment of Madras Bar Association v. Union of India & Anr..[BREAKING] Supreme Court upholds validity of Tribunal Rules 2020 with modifications; orders constitution of National Tribunals Commission.In the said case, the Central government added, the Supreme Court had directed the formation of a National Tribunals Commission to take care of the administrative and infrastructural needs of tribunals. Further, the top court had also directed constitution of 'Tribunals wing' in the Ministry of Finance to take up, deal with and finalize requirements of all tribunals till the National Tribunals Commission is established. .In view of the above, the Court observed that the reliefs sought in the petition were completely covered by the Supreme Court judgment..Considering that it has been more than three months since the judgement has been rendered, the Court said that the Centre should implement the directions contained in the apex court's judgment expeditiously. .The petition was accordingly disposed of..ASG Chetan Sharma with Standing Counsel Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar appeared for Centre..[Read Order]