| But the reverse trend is hardly noticed, although several national tribunals are still-born because of the stubborn attitude of the bureaucrats. |
| The Haryana government recently went one step ahead and let its officials choose the judge who would head the state consumer commission. |
| By a hard-hitting judgement, the Supreme Court shot down the attempt to erode judicial independence in State of Haryana vs National Consumer Awareness Group. |
| The post of the president of the state commission was lying vacant for more than a year in the tug-of-war between the bureaucrats and the high court. |
| According to Section (1A) of the Consumer Protection Act, appointments to the commission is made by a select committee consisting of its president and the secretaries in the law and consumer affairs ministries. |
| However, the law is not clear when the president of the commission himself has to be appointed. The Central government argued that even the president should be selected by the secretaries. |
| The Supreme Court came down heavily on this contention. It emphasised that this provision was not intended to lay down the rule for the selection of the president himself. |
| "In the first place, we cannot accede to the contention that the president of the state commission, who is or has been a judge of the high court, can be selected by a committee comprising two secretaries of the state government. Nothing could be more erosive of judicial independence than such interpretation," the judgement said, and added that it would also be destructive of judicial independence. |
| The committee of secretaries can select only the ordinary members of the consumer commission, the court clarified. |
| Some time ago, the Supreme Court had to direct administrative authorities not to supervise the working of the consumer forums in the country, keeping the executive strictly off from the judicial functions. |
| This was done in a batch of petitions complaining that the civil supply officers in UP were keeping the members of the consumer forums on tenterhooks and the government was not releasing funds for the consumer forums in several states. |
| "We make it clear that no officer of the executive shall carry out inspection of the district forums and exercise any administrative control over them," the order said. |
| The court made it clear that the 570 district forums would come under the administrative supervision of 37 state consumer commissions, which, in turn, would be supervised by the National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission. |
| The order followed the strong plea of the then solicitor general who said that the executive and the judiciary should be separated at all levels, and the consumer forums should be protected from administrative encroachments. |
| Other forums are also affected by this poaching of power. It's been nearly two months since the Central government gave an undertaking to the Supreme Court that it would appoint the chairman of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices (MRTP) commission in two weeks. |
| But the promise has not been kept and the court, which is on holiday, cannot pull up the government for the lapse. The commission has been topless for several months and was limping along with one member who has no judicial member. |
| That leads us to the shaggy dog story of the Competition Commission of India. The Act was challenged two years ago and after several unkept promises to give judiciary its weight in appointments, the Supreme Court made certain concrete suggestions to avoid its axe. |
| The draftsmen in the concerned ministries are still tinkering with them. As a result, the MRTP commission is living on borrowed time, much to the discomfit of the mandarins. |
| Similar is the story, with slight variants, of the proposed National Tax Tribunal and the National Company Law Tribunal. |
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