Tribunals on ventilators

The plight of litigants in the Supreme Court and high courts after the lockdown is evident as only about half among the sitting judges are holding court through video conference. The number of judgments delivered has also shrunk as never before. However, the status of the innumerable tribunals is much worse. Though they were set up to avoid the chronic delays in ordinary courts, there are hardly any of these quasi-judicial bodies which have full complement of members. In fact, most of them are topless, with no presidents appointed for long periods. Their predicament has worsened after the surprise lockdown.

Recently, Parliament amended the Consumer Protection Act to include e-commerce within the jurisdiction of consumer forums. 
Passing laws is the easiest thing these days. However, unless the rules are also passed to make the legislation work and the panel appointed they will remain on paper. In this case, the lawmakers have not complied with the Supreme Court order passed three years ago to amend the rules suggested by it. Though the court had demanded a compliance report, the case itself has disappeared from the court roster.
 

Meanwhile, the consumer confidence in the effectiveness of the forums has declined steeply. In Delhi, there was a drop of about 17 per cent in complaints over the years and after the shutdown it is 77 per cent. The facility for e-filing has not improved matters. Though the law says that a complaint should be disposed of in six months, a three-year wait is the minimum. Many forums and appellate bodies have no presidents or judicial members, with the result that cases are stuck for years at the final hearing stage and no judgment can be delivered without them. The current practice is to get the President of one forum to take additional charge of other tribunals. The result is that none of these 630 tribunals function effectively.

 

Other tribunals are no better. The Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) has an omnibus task of dealing with matters like trade marks, copyrights, patents and plant varieties protection. But it was born crippled since its inception in 2003. In a report called for by the Delhi high court in Mylan Laboratories case, the government stated some months ago that “cases relating to trademarks, copyrights and patents are not being taken up as there is no technical member relating to those specialties. The term of a patent is only 20 years and in many cases, due to lack of Coram, the patents have expired and the matters have become infructuous and rights of parties have been severely prejudiced”.
 

The IPAB President was given extension of tenure repeatedly, like last week by the Supreme Court, as the government had not come up with a new name. There is one technical member to keep the board on artificial respiration. He was originally appointed as the technical member for appeals in the Plant Varieties Protection Act. Now he is acting as the technical expert in trademarks, patents, copyrights and Geographical Indication of Goods. A real intellectual challenge to one single person.
 

The normal practice of the government is to establish tribunals through legislation with much fanfare and then abandon them by not providing infrastructure, funds and personnel. Many of them like the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and administrative tribunals suffered prolonged birth pangs in the Supreme Court as the laws were framed to accommodate retired bureaucrats. Judges would have none of it and they insisted on a judicial head. The government bowed to them and the tribunals began their faltering journey. There were some 36 tribunals at last count, though several have been merged to reduce their number. NCLT and the one set up under the Real Estate Regulation and Development Act (RERA) are comparatively new entrants to the medley. Being young, they have not yet relapsed into the ways of the civil courts and other tribunals. It would need heavy expenditure, hard work and steely will to revive the tribunals most of which are now in a vegetative state.