The Supreme Court on Wednesday orally put to the Union of India that, so far as administrative work in tribunals are concerned, it may consider creating an All-India Tribunals Service on the lines of UK's Her Majesty's Tribunals Service, by way of an umbrella service for allocation of persons to different tribunals like the NCDRC, the NCLT, the DRT and those under other central legislations.
The bench of Justices D. Y. Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath was hearing the Imtiyaz Ahmad v. State of UP matter, and deliberating on the issue of judicial infrastructure and judge strength primarily at the state and district level across the country.
ASG K. M. Nataraj, for the Centre, had advanced, "A suggestion may be creating a separate cadre for the purpose of registrars and other administrative officers. Because mostly judicial officers are posted as registrars, and to legal services authorities etc. If we can create separate administrative officers with separate administrative background, we can utilise judicial officers for the purpose of judicial work."
At this, Justice Chandrachud observed, "That is an issue to an extent. But there are also areas where you do need a judicial officer. There might be a viewpoint that why does the registrar general have to be a judicial officer and can you not have an administrative officer. But that is very difficult. We require a person who is fully conversant in the law. The post of the registrar general in the High Court has to deal with the district judiciary at all levels- Overseeing recruitment; discipline; then there is confidentiality, the registrar (vigilance) who is a judicial officer. You can't have a registrar (judicial) who comes from some other cadre...for the judicial academies, you should preferably have a judge. And not a district judge- My experience in Maharashtra and UP is that we pick up one district judge and appoint him as chair of the judicial Academy. We need a judicial educator, a judicial mind"
The judge continued to add, "But this is one of the constant demands of the tribunal system. The tribunals, for instance, the NCDRC has no cadre of its own. Or the SCDRCs. Officers from weights and measures departments and from all over the place are allocated. The judges who head the institute have no disciplinary control over them. They can only ask for them to be repatriated to their department, nothing else. So it is for you to constitute an all-India tribunals administrative service. In the UK, they have it. It is called Her Majesty's Tribunal Service. So that you have an umbrella service where people would be allocated to different tribunals- NCDRC, NCLT, DRT, those under all other central legislations..."
Case Title: IMTIYAZ AHMAD v. THE STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH AND ORS
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