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Amended Finance Act: SC strikes down rules on tribunal postings
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- A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court on 13 Nov struck down in entirety rules framed by the government under the Finance Act of 2017 to alter the appointments to 19 key judicial tribunals, including the Central Administrative Tribunal.
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- The Bench, led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, held that
(1) The Tribunal, Appellate Tribunal and other Authorities (Qualifications, Experience and other Conditions of Service of Members) Rules, 2017 suffered from “various infirmities”.
(2) “These rules formulated by the Central Government under Section 184 of the Finance Act, 2017, being contrary to the parent enactment and the principles envisaged in the Constitution as interpreted by this Court, are hereby struck down in entirety.
- In his majority opinion, CJI Gogoi referred to a larger Bench the issue and question whether the 2017 Act could have been passed as a money Bill.
- A seven-judge Bench should also decide the question whether the Lok Sabha Speaker acted in the right by certifying it as money bill, thus allowing it to circumvent Rajya Sabha.
- One of the petitioners in the case and Rajya Sabha MP, Jairam Ramesh, said the passing of the Finance Act 2017 as a money bill was deliberately done to “extend executive control over these institutions (tribunals) by altering the composition of the selection committees and vastly downgrading the qualifications required to staff these bodies”.
- Another reason for referring the ‘money bill’ question to a sevenjudge Bench was the court’s dissatisfaction with the way the Aadhaar judgment in the K. Puttuswamy case had dealt with the issue of what could be certified as a money bill.
- The Constitution Bench said the Puttuswamy verdict in the Aadhaar case was not comprehensive enough to be set as a precedent.
- However, in his minority opinion, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud held that the 2017 Act could not have been enacted as a money bill and that Part XIV of the Act amounted to a “substantive irregularity”.
Sources
The Hindu