Constitutional Provisions for Tribunals

Articles 323A and 323B, placed in Part XIV-A by the 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1976, enable legislatures to create tribunals by law. They do not themselves establish tribunals; they provide a constitutional framework for specialised adjudication outside the ordinary court structure.

Administrative tribunals under Article 323A

Article 323A empowers only Parliament to establish administrative tribunals for disputes concerning recruitment and conditions of service in public services and posts connected with the Union, states, local authorities, government-controlled authorities or corporations.

• Parliament may create separate tribunals for the Union and states, or a common tribunal for two or more states.
• The establishing law may prescribe jurisdiction, powers, procedure, limitation and transfer of pending cases, and may confer the power to punish for contempt.

Tribunals for specified matters under Article 323B

Article 323B permits the appropriate legislature, Parliament or a state legislature according to legislative competence, to establish tribunals for adjudicating disputes, complaints or offences relating to specified subjects.

• The listed subjects include taxation, foreign exchange and trade across customs frontiers, industrial and labour disputes, land reforms, urban property ceilings, legislative elections, essential goods and rent or tenancy matters.
• Unlike Article 323A, this provision is not confined to public-service disputes and can support a hierarchy of tribunals.

Judicial review and constitutional limits

Both provisions originally permitted tribunal laws to exclude the jurisdiction of ordinary courts, except the Supreme Court's special leave jurisdiction under Article 136. In L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India, 1997, the Supreme Court held that judicial review under Articles 32 and 226/227 forms part of the basic structure.

• Tribunals supplement rather than replace the High Courts.
• Tribunal decisions remain subject to scrutiny by a Division Bench of the concerned High Court.