SC removes key parts of Tribunals Reforms Act

Strikes down minimum age of 50 yrs, 4-yr tenure for members

- MONIKA YADAV & BHAVINI MISHRA

The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down the minimum age bar of 50 years and the truncated four-year tenure for tribunal members introduced under the Tribunal Reforms Act, 2021, holding that the Centre had revived in only a slightly altered form the very provisions earlier declared unconstitutional.

A Bench of Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice Vinod Chandran said the 2021 law violated the principles of judicial independence and separation of powers by reintroducing measures already struck down in the Madras Bar Association line of cases.

In a separate opinion, Justice Chandran criticised the provisions strongly, remarking: “The Tribunal Reforms Act, 2021 is a replica of the struck down Ordinance; old wine in a new bottle, the wine whets not the judicial palette, but the bottle merely dazzle.”