Tribunals transfer specified categories of disputes from ordinary courts to specialised adjudicatory bodies, thereby limiting the jurisdiction of civil courts in those matters.

Tribunals Curtail the Jurisdiction of Ordinary Courts

Transfer of specialised disputes
- Tribunal laws transfer particular categories of disputes from ordinary courts to specialised adjudicatory bodies.
  - Service disputes of Union government employees are ordinarily adjudicated by the Central Administrative Tribunal.
Exclusion of civil-court jurisdiction
- Parent statutes often expressly bar civil courts from entertaining matters assigned to a tribunal.
  - Section 430 of the Companies Act, 2013 bars civil courts from entertaining matters that the NCLT or NCLAT is empowered to determine.
Tribunals as courts of first instance
- Parties must ordinarily approach the relevant tribunal before seeking judicial review from a constitutional court.
  - In L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India (1997), the Supreme Court held that tribunals shall function as courts of first instance in matters falling within their specialised jurisdiction. However, their decisions remain subject to judicial review by the High Courts under Articles 226 and 227.
Special appellate mechanisms
- Appeals from an original tribunal may lie before an appellate tribunal instead of an ordinary court.
  - Appeals from the NCLT ordinarily lie before the NCLAT.
Reduced role of High Courts as appellate forums
- In some tribunal systems, statutory appeals bypass High Courts and lie directly before the Supreme Court, restricting the High Court’s ordinary appellate role.
- Section 22 of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) Act, 2010 explicitly dictates that any person aggrieved by an award, decision, or order of the National Green Tribunal may file an appeal directly to the Supreme Court of India
  - In the Madhya Pradesh High Court Advocates Bar Association v. Union of India (2022) case, the Supreme Court upheld the remedy of direct appeal to the Supreme Court from the orders of the NGT

Curtailment is not Absolute

Judicial review remains intact
- In L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India, the Supreme Court held that judicial review of High Courts under Articles 226 and 227 forms part of the Constitution’s basic structure and cannot be excluded by tribunal legislation.
Tribunals supplement constitutional courts
- Tribunals function as courts of first instance in specialised matters, but their decisions remain subject to scrutiny by High Courts.
  - In L. Chandra Kumar versus Union of India and Ors, 1997, Supreme Court held that tribunals will act as courts of first instance in respect of areas of law for which they have been constituted. However, decisions of these tribunals will be subject to scrutiny by a division bench of the High Court within whose jurisdiction the concerned tribunal falls.

Thus, tribunals curtail the jurisdiction of ordinary courts only in specialised statutory matters; they cannot replace the High Courts, whose power of judicial review forms part of the Constitution’s basic structure

Sample Mains Question

1.“Tribunalisation has curtailed the jurisdiction of ordinary courts without eliminating the constitutional supervisory jurisdiction of the High Courts.” Examine. (250 Words, 15 Marks)

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Tribunals and Curtailment of the Jurisdiction of Ordinary Courts

Tribunals and Curtailment of the Jurisdiction of Ordinary Courts

Tribunals Curtail the Jurisdiction of Ordinary Courts

Curtailment is not Absolute

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