ABSTRACT:
Judicial independence lies at the heart of a well-functioning judiciary and is the cornerstone of a democratic, market-based society based on the rule of law.[1] This paper examines the constitutional and institutional dimensions of the Supreme Court’s judgment in Madras Bar Association v. Union of India in 2025, where the court struck down a few essential provisions of the Tribunal Reforms Act, 2021. This judgment initiated the latest chapter in a consequential dialogue between the legislature and the judiciary over the autonomy and independence of India’s tribunal system.
Tribunals are established as exclusive adjudicating bodies to reduce the burden of the courts and deliver justice faster across domains that require specialized investigations. However, their duty has constantly been undermined by the executive interference in appointments, duration, and service. This paper analyses the legislative history from the Tribunals Reforms Ordinance, 2021, struck down by the Supreme Court in July 2021, to Parliament’s reenactment of a similar act, the Tribunal Reforms Act, 2021. The Court called this an unacceptable legislative override of the constitutional statements.
The paper traces the constitutional conflict of this dispute, the rule of separation of powers, judicial independence, and the basic structure doctrine, and examines the rational impacts of prolonged vacancies in tribunals and uncertainty in the appointments of litigants, businesses, and economists. It also evaluates the Supreme Court’s decision to establish the National Tribunals Commission as a safeguard for institutional independence. The paper concludes that the consistent attempts of the legislation to subordinate the tribunals to take control are not just a constitutional violation but also a threat to the rule of law and India’s economic governance.
KEYWORDS:
Tribunals, Judicial Independence, Separation of Powers, Rule of Law, Legislative override, Executive, Economic Governance.
INTRODUCTION:
Tribunals are one of the most significant fields of the legal system. They are specialized judicial or quasi-judicial bodies that conduct trials and deliver justice in their respective subjects. The objective may be to reduce the caseload of the judiciary or to bring in subject expertise for technical matters.[2] The Supreme Court has emphasized that, since tribunals are quasi-judicial institutions, they should have the same level of independence from the executive as the judicial bodies, such as the conventional courts.
To ensure that these tribunals are independent from the executive as they should be, the Supreme Court has suggested that all matters relating to the administration be handled by the law ministry, instead of the respective ministry. Later, looking into the further consequences, the Court also recommended the establishment of the National Tribunals Commission for the proper and efficient administration of these tribunals. However, these suggestions have not been independent yet.
The most significant issue with the tribunals was their independence. They were promised it, but it was constantly colliding with the behavior of the executive and their interference, legislative override, and a repeated reluctance to allow the tribunals to make decisions on their own, which inevitably put their independence, a constitutional requirement, in serious threat. The conflict reached a peak moment on November 19, 2025, when the Supreme Court, in Madras Bar Association v. Union of India,[3] struck down key provisions of the Tribunal Reforms Act, 2021, which created a significant consequence between the legislative and the judiciary over the control of the tribunal system of India.
Despite repeated judgments and clear judicial standards, the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021, was enacted by Parliament, containing provisions that were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in July 2021.[4] The Court in the 2025 judgment emphasized that it was an intentional legislative overreach, which was considered a direct violation of the doctrine of separation of powers and the basic structure of the Constitution.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:
This is doctrinal research, in which the researcher has interpreted certain case law while examining materials from multiple sources, including newsletters, essays, articles, and journals.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE:
The principle of separation of powers is one of the bases of the constitutionality of the tribunal system of India. In India, the principle is not rigid; it allows limited institutional interference, but it must be within the said limitation and not more than that. The story of the Tribunal Reforms Act, 2021, must be understood within this framework.
The constitutional basis lies in Articles 323A and 323B, which were inserted through the 42nd Amendment in 1976. The articles empower Parliament to establish specialized tribunals, with Article 50 requiring the judiciary and executive to be separated. These provisions, along with the basic structure doctrine affirmed in Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala, place judicial independence beyond the reach of legislative amendment.
The Tribunal System in India by PRS Legislative Research provides a thorough account of the systemic development of tribunals and identifies the lack of an independent governing body as a fundamental structural gap. This conclusion is supported by the Seventy-Fourth Report (2015) of the Parliamentary Standing Committee, which had suggested the formation of the National Tribunal Commission almost ten years before the Supreme Court’s directives. The Act’s provisions resemble the precise constitutional flaws found in the Madras Bar Association series of decisions, according to Ishika Sinha’s contemporaneous scholarly study published in the Indian Journal of Law and Legal Research (2025).
The main judicial timeline spans four decades, from the case of S.P Sampath Kumar v. Union of India and L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India to the landmark judgment of November 19, 2025, whose documents are accessible in the Supreme Court Observer’s Judgement Matrix by Debjani M.
ANALYSIS:
Background and Legislative History:
Pendency of cases and judicial delays are two of the key challenges faced by the judicial system in India. As of June 2021, approx. 91,800 cases have been pending for more than 30 years in multiple High Courts of India. As of May 2021, almost 68,000 cases are pending in the Supreme Court of India.[5] To curb this problem, the judiciary came up with the introduction of tribunals, which will adjudicate specialized matters, reducing the workload of the courts.
Articles 323A and 323B were added to the Indian Constitution by the 42nd Amendment of 1976, formalizing the constitutional basis. This gave Parliament the power to create subject-specific tribunals in several areas, including taxation, land reform, and labor disputes, as well as administrative tribunals for service matters. The Central Administrative Tribunal, the National Company Law Tribunal, and other tribunals that were established to offer expedited, expert-driven adjudication in their respective fields proliferated throughout the legal landscape over the following decades.
The key developments of the Indian Tribunal System are as follows:
1941 – The Income Tax Appellant Tribunal was formed as the first tribunal to reduce the burden and help with complex matters.
1976 – The 42nd Amendment was passed, with the inclusion of Articles 323A and 323B, empowering the Parliament to establish administrative tribunals, both at the central and state levels.
1980s – Various tribunals were formed through different Acts.
2017 – The tribunal system was changed under the enactment of the Finance Act, 2017.[6] The tribunals were merged based on functional similarity. The number was reduced to 19 from 26.
2021 – The Tribunal Reforms Act, 2021, was passed, and the Tribunal Reforms Ordinance, 2021,[7] was struck down by the Supreme Court in July 2021.
Tribunal Reforms Act, 2021:
The enactment of the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021, represents a critical step by the legislature within the prolonged process of tribunalisation in India.[8] The Act was brought into force to curb the repeated judicial intervention, doubting the government’s way of tribunal administration and legislative attempts to defy the Supreme Court. The Act contains provisions for the composition, service duration, terms and conditions, structure of tribunals, and dissolves some existing tribunals. The Act abolished eight tribunals, transferring their powers and jurisdiction to High Courts. The government defended this move by arguing that it was meant to prevent the spread of low-workload tribunals and to make the process of adjudication easier and simpler. [9]
The executive was granted significant power over appointments by the Act. The composition of search-cum-selection committees was intended to give the central government a significant role with minimal judicial participation.[10] Tenure regulations were equally controversial. Two of the Act’s provisions were a minimum age limit of 50 years for appointment and a predetermined term of four years for tribunal members. The retirement age restriction of 67 years for members and 70 years for chairpersons limited the operational period of experienced appointments. The Act didn’t reform the tribunal system; it advanced the executive control over it by masking it as a reform.
The Constitutional Conflict:
This Act has given rise to one of the constitutional conflicts, which the Indian judiciary has been articulating clearly for years. The conflict was mainly on the doctrine of the separation of powers, which requires the legislative, executive, and judiciary to work within their designated roles without interfering in one another’s jobs. However, the control over the appointments, duration, and terms of the tribunal members was given to the executive, which resulted in the independence of the adjudication of the tribunal being structurally compromised.
The Supreme Court has emphasised this issue in various sets of judgments across four decades, such as from S.P. Sampath Kumar v. Union of India,[11] and L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India[12] to Madras Bar Association v. Union of India.[13] In each of these decisions, the court has ruled that the tribunals should have the same level of independence from executive and legislative administration. Parliament, re-enacting a similar statute consisting of already invalidated provisions through the 2021 Act, was a challenge to the doctrine of basic structure.
The Supreme Court Ruling of November 19, 2025:
The judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Madras Bar Association v. Union of India on 19 November, 2025, by a Bench of Chief Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice K.V. Chandram, gave a verdict on the Tribunal Reforms Act, 2021. The decision involved striking down a few key provisions of the Act, holding the Parliament liable for legislative overreach. While the Union government submitted that the judiciary cannot dictate law-making, the Court clarified the distinction between direction of legislation and review of enactments to ensure constitutional supremacy.[14]
The provisions that were struck down are the four-year tenure and the minimum age requirement of 50 years for tribunal members. Both of these provisions were invalidated before by the Court. The Court reasoned this with the fact that short tenures would increase the executive’s control over the tribunals and disregard the appointments of better candidates. The search-cum-selection committees, which were predominantly composed of executive members, were declared unconstitutional. The government, being often involved with various cases before the courts, cannot be the one to decide the adjudicators of the disputes.
Another significant aspect is the order to establish a National Tribunals Commission directed by the Court within four months, which will control the appointments, tenures, and administration of the tribunal system. However, this has not been implemented till today by the government, and the end of the legislative and executive invasion is yet to be reached.
Impact on pending appointments and cases:
The constitutional conflict between the judiciary and the executive over the Act was not silent. The Supreme Court and Parliament were busy in their institutional standoff; the actual impact was seen severely on the vacant posts, pending appointments, and hundreds of cases left unattended.
The uncertainty surrounding the Act’s validity cooled the appointment process itself. Senior officials, retired High Court judges, and subject matter experts were among the prospective candidates who were reluctant to accept tribunal positions whose terms of service, compensation, and tenure were presently under dispute before the Supreme Court. Due to constitutional challenges to the fundamental laws permitting their appointment, the security and validity of any such appointment were very questionable. The already grave vacancy issue in India’s tribunal system was exacerbated by this hesitancy.
The impacts of litigants were immediate and tangible. Tribunals operating with reduced benches or extended vacancies could not maintain regular hearing schedules, causing fresh backlogs to accumulate in forums specifically designed to relieve the pressure on courts.[15] Many tribunals were affected, such as the National Company Law Tribunal, the Income Tax Appellant Tribunal, and the Debt Recovery Tribunal. These institutions handle disputes with huge economic risks. Due to vacancies, delays, and unresolved insolvencies, tax recoveries worth hundreds of crores were stalled.
Due to this, the businessmen and investors were deeply disappointed and discouraged. Tribunals were made for faster justice delivery by experts. When this becomes an administrative inability, then the economic structure of the nation is questioned, and the financial framework becomes uncertain.
National Tribunals Commission:
The establishment of the National Tribunals Commission (NTC) was first suggested by the Supreme Court in Madras Bar Association v. Union of India in 2020. It was supposed to be an independent body to supervise the roles and functions of the tribunals, appointments, and proceedings, and look after the administration and the infrastructure of the tribunal system.
One of the other aims for the establishment of NTC was to ensure the division of the administration and judicial roles, which would uphold the doctrine of separation of powers. However, after no changes, the Supreme Court, in 2025, directed the Union Government to establish the NTC within four months, this time with a strict deadline and a clear constitutional mandate behind it.
Currently, the tribunals are operating under their respective ministries, such as the Income Tax Appellant Tribunal under the Ministry of Finance, the National Green Tribunal under the Ministry of Environment, and so on. This led to fragmented administration, which meant these ministries, whose cases are often involved before the tribunals, decide their salaries, tenure, and infrastructure. This problem is supposed to be solved when the National Tribunals Commission is established, as all the tribunals would come under its control.
If the National Tribunals Commission is established effectively and meaningfully, the Commission has the potential to transform the tribunal system of India into a credible, independent, and better-fitting structure from a site of institutional oversight. It could become an essential pillar of the nation’s judicial system and economic framework.
Implications of Separation of Powers, Rule of Law, and Economic Governance:
The striking down of the Tribunal Reforms Act, 2021, by the Supreme Court carries implications that affect more than just tribunal appointments. It has changed the administration in a better and more efficient way. It has also improved the health of constitutional democracy, the integrity of the institution, and the reliability of its economic governance.
What happens when one branch of administration continually disregards the constitutional boundaries set by another is at the core of this problem. Rather than being a creative act of statute, the re-enactment of laws that Parliament had previously pronounced illegal by the Supreme Court was an expression of executive will over judicial authority. A fundamental tenet of constitutional democracy was upheld by the Court’s firm answer: the basic structure doctrine is in place specifically to prevent the legislation of fundamental guarantees, like judicial autonomy, and no state organ, no matter how dominant, is superior to the Constitution.[16]
When it comes to the rule of law, everyone and everything is equal, which means the implications are also equally important. In a system where these quasi-judicial bodies are considered to be a part of the executive administration rather than an independent judiciary cannot support proper legislation and bring confidence to litigants, businesses, and investors. If a party refuses to approach the tribunal because the members were appointed by the government, whose decisions are not seen as fit, then the reliability of these tribunals is compromised, regardless of the quality of the judiciary.
There are real and noticeable economic consequences to this institutional hostility. Foreign investors take into account more than just market size and tax rates when evaluating India as a possible capital destination; they also take into account the independence and reliability of the legal institutions that would protect their interests in the event of disputes.[17] Tribunals like the National Company Law Tribunal and the Debt Recovery Tribunal, whose legitimacy is closely tied to India’s standing as an investment destination, have a direct influence on investment decisions. In this sense, the Supreme Court’s ruling was both an economic and constitutional intervention, demonstrating that autonomous institutions constitute the foundation of progress rather than a hindrance.
SUGGESTIONS:
The Supreme Court, after striking down the Tribunal Reforms Act, 2021, has provided India with an opportunity to fix the tribunal system and the economic framework. Firstly, the Union Government should start with the establishment of the National Tribunals Committee within the prescribed timeline, as a truthful commitment. Once the NTC is established, its aim and objectives must be strictly followed. The legislation should function genuinely, ensuring that judicial independence is provided to the tribunals as they were promised. All the vacancies in the tribunals should be filled swiftly and meritoriously, as well as the selection committee. Finally, the National Tribunals Commission should be preferred to oversee a periodic performance report of the audit mechanism, which would ensure efficiency and independence in the tribunal system and economic governance.
CONCLUSION:
The history and story of the Tribunal Reforms Act, 2021, is one of the stories involving institutional trust and constitutional duties. Over the years, the Supreme Court and Parliament have engaged in repeated constitutional dialogues about control over the tribunal system, which affects hundreds of litigants and businesses and, in turn, impacts the economic structure of India.
Decided on November 19, 2025, the Supreme Court’s ruling drew a strict and mandatory line. It struck down the key provisions of the Act and reaffirmed the judicial independence of the tribunals in India. Judicial independence is more of a guarantee given by the Constitution than a procedural courtesy. It cannot be restricted by the legislative or the executive. By striking down the Act, the Court protected the institutional integrity of tribunals as well as the rule of law.
This story does not end here. It would be fruitful only when Parliament is willing to legislate truthfully and constitutionally, the executive is willing to forego control, and a National Tribunals Commission is established to deliver the intended aim and objective. The main objective of the tribunal system is to deliver justice faster and fairer. Now, it is time to allow them to do the same with independence and integrity.
Justice cannot be guaranteed if the nation cannot provide independence to its judicial institutions. And a nation that cannot guarantee justice cannot truly improve and provide growth to its administration and citizens.
Tanvi Jain
Damodaram Sanjivayya National Law University
[1] U.S. Agency for Int’l Dev., Guidance for Promoting Judicial Independence and Impartiality (rev. ed. 2002).
[2] The Tribunal System in India, PRS Legislative Research (last visited June 18, 2026).
[3] Madras Bar Ass’n v. Union of India, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 2498 (India).
[4] Madras Bar Ass’n v. Union of India, W.P.(C) No. 000502 of 2021 (India), July 14, 2021; Tribunals Reforms Act, No. 33 of 2021, Acts of Parliament, 2021 (India).
[5] PRS Legislative Research, The Tribunal System in India, PRS India, (last visited June 18, 2026)
[6] The Finance Act, No. 7 of 2017, Acts of Parliament, 2017 (India).
[7] Tribunals Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Ordinance, No. 2 of 2021 (India).
[8] Tribunalisation and the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021: Balancing Efficiency with Judicial Independence, VII Indian J.L. & Legal Rsch., Issue V (2025).
[9] Dep’t-Related Parliamentary Standing Comm. on Personnel, Pub. Grievances, L. & Just., Seventy-Fourth Report on the Tribunals, Appellate Tribunals & Other Authorities (Conditions of Service) Bill, 2014, (2015) (India).
[10] Rojer Mathew v. South Indian Bank Ltd., (2019) 369 ELT 3 (SC) (India); Madras Bar Ass’n v. Union of India, (2020) 2 SCC 69 (India).
[11] S.P. Sampath Kumar v. Union of India, AIR 1987 SC 386 (India)
[12] L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India, AIR 1997 SC 1125 (India)
[13] Madras Bar Ass’n v. Union of India, (2020) 2 SCC 69 (India).
[14] Validity of the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021: Judgement Matrix, Supreme Court Observer (Nov. 20, 2025),
[15] PRS Legislative Research, The Tribunal System in India, PRS India.
[16] Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, AIR 1973 SC 1461 (India); L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India, AIR 1997 SC 1125 (India).
[17] PRS Legislative Research, The Tribunal System in India, PRS India.