During the hearing on the constitutional challenge to the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021, the Supreme Court was informed that appointments to various tribunals are allegedly being made from wait-listed candidates by bypassing higher-ranked candidates in the main merit list.
A Bench of Chief Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice K. Vinod Chandran was hearing the Madras Bar Association petition questioning provisions affecting tenure, selection procedure, and eligibility criteria for tribunal members.
Senior Advocate Arvind Datar, for the petitioners, argued that several provisions of the Act violate earlier Madras Bar Association rulings, specifically:
1. Minimum age requirement of 50 years to be appointed as a tribunal member
2. Mandate that the Search-cum-Selection Committee recommend two names for the post of Chairperson, enabling executive preference
3. Four-year tenure, which is shorter than what the Court has previously directed
On appointments, he highlighted data from the ITAT (2018) selections:
For 21 judicial vacancies, the SSC recommended 28 candidates in the merit list and 13 in the wait list. Ultimately, 16 were selected from the merit list, while 6 were picked from the wait list, allegedly skipping candidates with higher rankings.
Senior Advocates Gopal Sankarnarayanan and Porus F. Kaka added that IB reports containing adverse comments were used to eliminate candidates after SSC had recommended them — but these reports were not shared with the SSC — leading to “arbitrary cherry-picking.”
The Attorney General R. Venkataramani will present the Union’s response on Monday.
Case: Madras Bar Association v. Union of India & Anr., W.P.(C) No. 1018/2021
