The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down the 2021 Tribunal Reforms Act, which pertains to the appointments, tenure and service conditions of tribunal members, ruling that it violated judicial independence, Live Law reported.
A bench of Chief Justice BR Gavai and Justice Vinod Chandran noted that provisions that had been struck down by the court in its earlier judgements were reintroduced in the Act by the Union government with minor tweaks, Bar and Bench reported.
The bench held that the Act cannot be sustained as it violated constitutional principles related to the separation of powers and judicial independence, Live Law reported.
“The impugned Act directly contradicts binding judicial pronouncements that have repeatedly clarified the standards governing the appointment, tenure, and functioning of tribunal members,” Live Law quoted the judgement as saying. “Instead of curing the defects identified by this court, the impugned Act merely reproduces, in slightly altered form, the very provisions earlier struck down.”
The judgement said that this amounted to a “legislative override in the strictest sense: an attempt to nullify binding judicial directions without addressing the underlying constitutional infirmities”.
The bench added that the Act failed to remove the defects identified in prior judgements and instead re-enacted them under a new label, thereby falling “afoul of the doctrine of constitutional supremacy”, Live Law reported.
The court went on to strike down the...
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