The Working of Tribunals: the Administrative Tribunals Act 1985

In one line

The Administrative Tribunals Act 1985 took every service dispute of a government servant out of the civil courts and the High Courts and gave it to a specialised tribunal, and the courts then spent twelve years deciding how much of that was constitutional.

In the words a student can write in an exam: the Administrative Tribunals Act 1985 was enacted under Article 323A to provide for the adjudication of disputes relating to recruitment and conditions of service of persons appointed to public services under the Union and the States. It establishes the Central Administrative Tribunal and State Administrative Tribunals, prescribes their composition, qualifications and terms of office, confers on them the jurisdiction previously exercised by the courts in service matters, lays down a simplified procedure, and by section 28 purported to exclude the jurisdiction of all courts except the Supreme Court under Article 136; that exclusion was held unconstitutional, so far as it touched Articles 226, 227 and 32, in the decision of seven judges worked below.

The scheme of the Act, section by section

The Act has 37 sections and they fall into five groups. Reading them in groups is the way to remember them.

Group 1: establishment and constitution, sections 1 to 13

• Section 1 short title, extent and commencement. Section 2 provides that the Act does not apply to certain persons, principally members of the armed forces, officers and servants of the Supreme Court and the High Courts, and persons in the secretarial staff of Parliament and the State legislatures. Section 3 contains the definitions.
• Section 4 establishes the Central Administrative Tribunal for Union services, and empowers the Central Government, on receipt of a request from a State, to establish a State Administrative Tribunal, and by agreement between two or more States a Joint Administrative Tribunal.
• Section 5 deals with composition and Benches: a Chairman, and such number of Vice-Chairmen and Judicial and Administrative Members as the appropriate Government may deem fit. Ordinarily a Bench consists of one Judicial and one Administrative Member. The proviso to section 5(6) requires that where a question involving the interpretation of a statutory provision or rule in relation to the Constitution arises before a single Member, it be referred to a Bench of at least two Members.
• Section 6 prescribes qualifications for the Chairman, Vice-Chairman and Members. Section 7 allows a Vice-Chairman to act as Chairman. Section 8 fixes the term of office and section 9 provides for resignation and removal. Section 10 deals with salaries, allowances and other conditions of service; section 10A saves the terms and conditions of service of a Vice-Chairman; and section 10B governs the qualifications, terms and conditions of service of the Chairman and Members, which is the provision the Tribunals Reforms Act 2021 amended by its section 15. Section 11 restricts the holding of offices after ceasing to be Chairman or Member. Section 12 confers financial and administrative powers on the Chairman, and section 13 provides for the staff.