In a
landmark judgement which is bound to go a long way in establishing the
independence of judicial functioning in India and bringing cheer to the
champions of separation of judiciary from the executive, the Punjab &
Haryana High Court has directed that the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) be brought
under the control of Ministry of Law and Justice rather than the Ministry of
Defence as is the case at present. The directions, made available today, came
in a PIL filed by Navdeep Singh, the former and founder President of the AFT
Bar Association at Chandigarh.
The Petition
had pointed out that the Supreme Court had already held that Tribunals could
not be made dependent on sponsoring or parent Ministries and to ensure their
independence they could only be supervised by the Law Ministry. It had been
averred that all orders by the AFT were to be passed against the Defence
Ministry and the same Ministry had been made the parent controlling Ministry of
the Tribunal wielding all pervasive control over the AFT including
appointments, funding, rule-making and infrastructure, thereby making it seem
more of an extension of the State rather than an independent judicial body. The
Petition also pointed out that non-appointment of Judicial Members after their
retirements had resulted in absolute absence of judicial remedy to serving and
retired personnel at some places. The Chandigarh Bench, having the largest
jurisdiction of five states was also partially functional with only one
judicial member appointed out of three.
The
Petition had sought provisioning of proper infrastructure, accommodation and
courtesy to the institution of AFT and its members. It had been pointed out
that though the Tribunal had to perform criminal appellate functions, there was
no representative of the Police in the premises. The Petition also questioned the
logic of having two serving career bureaucrats on the selection committee
examining the suitability of serving or retired High Court Judges to be
appointed to the AFT.
Giving
directions to the government, the High Court has directed that after bringing
the Tribunal under the purview of the Law Ministry, suitable amendments in the
selection committee can also be carried out. The court has also hoped that all
vacancies of judicial members would be filled up in the near future. The court
has directed that immediate steps be taken to give effect to its directions.
While
giving directions, the High Court has relied upon earlier judgements of the
Supreme Court in which it has been observed that Tribunals in India have not
yet achieved full independence and unless wide ranging reforms are carried out,
Tribunals would not be considered independent. The Court has also observed that
the idea behind setting up of the AFT and also the reason behind passing of the
AFT Act was ‘independence’ and that since the function of the Tribunal is
purely judicial and adjudicatory, keeping in view the doctrine of separation of
powers inherently ingrained in our Constitutional System, the Government per se
ideally should have minimal say in the functioning of the
AFT.
No comments:
Post a Comment