Polity

KEY POINTS

Weakening HCs jurisdiction

·         Rampant Tribunalisation has replaced high courts with tribunals for disputes under the Companies Act, Competition Act, SEBI Act, Electricity Act, and Consumer Protection Act among others.

·         Any person aggrieved by an order of an appellate tribunal can directly appeal to the Supreme Court, side-stepping the high court.

·         The jurisdiction of high courts is also undermined by the Supreme Court when it directly entertains various writ petitions.

Impact in Justice delivery system

·         These tribunals do not enjoy the same constitutional protection as high courts.

·         The appointment process and service conditions of high court judges are not under the control of the executive.

·         Many tribunals still owe allegiance to their parent ministries.

·         Tribunals are not as accessible as high courts.

·         For example, there are just four benches of the Green Tribunal for the whole country.

·         A shareholder in Kerala or the Northeast would have to travel to the Securities Appellate Tribunal in Mumbai to challenge any order by the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

·         This makes justice expensive and difficult to access.

·         High courts are the training grounds for future Supreme Court judges.

·         When high courts are side-stepped in favour of tribunals, Supreme Court judges hearing appeals from tribunals would have to deal with the finer nuances of disputes under specialised areas of law for the very first time.

·         This is not ideal for a court of last resort.

·         When the Supreme Court exercises original jurisdiction, it deprives the citizen and the state of the right to challenge potentially erroneous orders.

·         The Supreme Court will become wiser by a well-considered high court ruling, when a case travels from high court to the Supreme Court.

·         E.g. In the triple talaq ruling, SC benefited from prior high court decisions on the nuances of Muslim personal law.

Solutions

·         High courts will be allowed to exercise appellate jurisdiction over orders of tribunals.

·         It would act as filters, enabling the Supreme Court to confine itself to those substantial questions where there is divergence among high courts.

·         It will also reduce the backlog of cases in Supreme Court.

·         The rationale advanced for avoiding high courts is the colossal backlog.

·         This is a problem of the government’s making as it consciously chooses not to appoint judges of the sanctioned strength for each high court.

·         The way ahead lies in the creation of specialised divisions in high courts for tax, company law and environmental disputes.

·         Speed up the appointment process to fulfil the sanctioned strength of courts. 

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