The Madras High Court today made it clear that all appointments to the 19 tribunals, under the purview of the Finance Act and rules, would be subject to the final outcome of a plea assailing some provisions of the law enacted this year.
The bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice V Bhavani Subbaroyan passed the interim order while admitting the plea filed by the Madras Bar Association.
"Prima facie, the impugned Rules are in contravention of the directives of the Supreme Court and that of a division bench of this high court passed in 2014. Hence, any step taken pursuant to the impugned rules in the meanwhile, shall abide by the result of the writ petition," the bench said.
According to the petitioner, the Union government, in an unprecedented manner, introduced the Bill, proposing to make amendments to various Acts, inter alia, aiming to reform a total of 27 tribunals on February 1.
Of these, the bill sought to shut down eight tribunals by merging them with the remaining 19 tribunals. The Lok Sabha approved the bill onMarch 22. The President of India gave his assent to the bill onMarch 31, following which the the Finance Act, 2017 came into effect fromApril 1.
The petitioner contended that the Money Bill process was abused to make amendments to the functioning of the tribunals that were set up under 17 Acts, including Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, many of which are non-fiscal by nature.
The Rajya Sabha alone can recommend amendments to Money Bills. In this case, the bill was not placed before the Rajya Sabhha, the petitioner said.
The Supreme Court had already held that abusing ordinance making power and deliberate use of Article 110 to circumvent the need of Rajya Sabha approval, would amount to playing a fraud on the Constitution.
The rules suffered from severe infirmities with regard to the doctrine of separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary that forms part of the basic structure of the constitution, the petitioner contended.
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