State of Gujarat & Anr vs. Gujarat Revenue Tribunal Bar Association & Anr AIR 2013 SC 107
The High Court had allowed the writ petition filed by the Respondents striking down Rule 3(1)(iii)(a) of the Gujarat Revenue Tribunal Rules 1982 which conferred power upon the State Government to appoint the Secretary to the Government of Gujarat, as the President of the Revenue Tribunal constituted under the Bombay Revenue Tribunal Act, 1957 (the Act). His appointment was challenged by the Respondents, on the ground that the office of the Chairman, being a “judicial office” could not be usurped by a person who had been an Administrative Officer all his life.
The High Court, vide impugned judgment had held that the Tribunal was in the strict sense, a “court” and that the President, who presides over such a Tribunal could therefore, only be a “Judicial Officer”, a District Judge etc., for which, concurrence of the High Court is necessary under Article 234 of the Constitution of India. The State of Gujarat filed an appeal in the Supreme Court.
The Honourable Supreme Court observed that although the term ‘court’ has not been defined under the Act, it is indisputable that courts belong to the judicial hierarchy and constitute the country’s judiciary as distinct from the executive or legislative branches of the State. Judicial functions involve the decision of rights and liabilities of the parties. An enquiry and investigation into facts is a material part of judicial function. The legislature, in its wisdom, has created the tribunal and transferred the work which was regularly done by the civil courts to them, as it was found necessary to do so in order to provide an efficacious remedy and also to reduce the burden on the civil courts and further, also to save the aggrieved person from bearing the burden of heavy court fees etc. Thus, the system of tribunals was created as a machinery for the speedy disposal of claims arising under a particular Statute/Act.
A Tribunal may not necessarily be a court, in spite of the fact that it may be presided over by a judicial officer, as other qualified persons may also possibly be appointed to perform such duty. One of the tests to determine whether a tribunal is a court or not, is to check whether the High Court has revisional jurisdiction so far as the judgments and orders passed by the Tribunal are concerned. Supervisory or revisional jurisdiction is considered to be a power vesting in any superior court or Tribunal, enabling it to satisfy itself as regards the correctness of the orders of the inferior Tribunal. This is the basic difference between appellate and supervisory jurisdiction. Appellate jurisdiction confers a right upon the aggrieved person to complain in the prescribed manner, to a higher forum whereas, supervisory/revisional power has a different object and purpose altogether, as it confers the right and responsibility upon the higher forum to keep the subordinate Tribunals within the limits of the law. It is for this reason that revisional power can be exercised by the competent authority/court suo motu, in order to see that subordinate Tribunals do not transgress the rules of law and are kept within the framework of powers conferred upon them. In the generic sense, a court is also a Tribunal. However, courts are only such Tribunals as have been created by the concerned statute and belong to the judicial department of the State as opposed to the executive branch of the said State.
Tribunals have primarily been constituted to deal with cases under special laws and to hence provide for specialised adjudication alongside the courts. Therefore, a particular Act/set of Rules will determine whether the functions of a particular Tribunal are akin to those of the courts, which provide for the basic administration of justice. An authority may be described as a quasi-judicial authority when it possesses certain attributes or trappings of a ‘court’, but not all.
The present case is also required to be examined in the context of Article 227 of the Constitution of India, with specific reference to the 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act 1976, where the expression ‘court’ stood by itself, and not in juxtaposition with the other expression used therein, namely, Tribunal’. The power of the High Court of judicial superintendence over the Tribunals, under the amended Article 227 stood obliterated. By way of the amendment in the sub-article, the words, “and Tribunals” stood deleted and the words “subject to its appellate jurisdiction” have been substituted after the words, “all courts”. In other words, this amendment purports to take away the High Court’s power of superintendence over Tribunal. Moreover, the High Court’s power has been restricted to have judicial superintendence only over judgments of inferior courts, i.e. judgments in cases where against the same, appeal or revision lies with the High Court. A question does arise as regards whether the expression ‘courts’ as it appears in the amended Article 227, is confined only to the regular civil or criminal courts that have been constituted under the hierarchy of courts and whether all Tribunals have in fact been excluded from the purview of the High Court’s superintendence. Undoubtedly, all courts are Tribunals but all Tribunal are not courts.
Section 13(1) of the Act, provides that in exercising the jurisdiction conferred upon the Tribunal, the Tribunal shall have all the powers of a civil court as enumerated therein and shall be deemed to be a civil court for the purposes of sections 195, 480 and 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and that its proceedings shall be deemed to be judicial proceedings, within the meaning of sections 193, 219 and 228 of the Indian Penal Code.
Taking into consideration various statutes dealing with not only the revenue matters, but also covering other subjects, make it crystal clear that the Tribunal does not deal only with revenue matters provided under the Schedule I, but has also been conferred appellate/revisional powers under various other statutes. Most of those statutes provide that the Tribunal, while dealing with appeals, references, revisions, etc., would act giving strict adherence to the procedure prescribed in the Code of Civil Procedure, for deciding a matter as followed by the Civil Court and certain powers have also been conferred upon it, as provided in the Code of Criminal Procedure and Indian Penal Code. Thus, it was held that the Tribunal is akin to a court and performs similar functions.
The Apex Court dismissed the appeal.
