CHANDIGARH: The Delhi High Court has once again made it clear that orders of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) and Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) are challengeable before the jurisdictional high courts and not the Supreme Court directly, as decided by Constitution Benches of the Supreme Court.
The court emphasized this while disposing of a bunch of petitions led by the case of Wing Commander Shyam Naithani where the central government had once again raised objection over jurisdiction of high courts over orders passed by the AFT.
‘Direct appeal to SC only if issue of general public importance’
The Delhi HC has ruled that issues personal to litigants such as pay, pension, promotion are not matters of “general public importance” and hence cannot be taken directly to the SC and that the HC would have jurisdiction over such AFT orders.
When the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, was introduced, orders of the CAT were only challengeable in SC.
However, in 1998, a seven-judge Constitution Bench of the SC had held in the case of L Chandra Kumar that such arrangement made justice unaffordable and inaccessible to litigants and the constitutional power of judicial review by HCs could not be ousted. Under the AFT Act, 2007, a direct appeal was provided to SC from the AFT, but only if the case involved a point of law of “general public importance”, making it unaffordable and almost impossible for military veterans, their families and serving soldiers to challenge orders di- rectly in SC.
Various HCs had thereafter held that AFT orders shall continue to remain challengeable in HC as per law laid down in L Chandra Kumar’s case but the situation got altered in 2015 when a division bench of the SC held that in view of the statutory remedy of direct appeal in the SC, the HCs should not exercise their powers under writ jurisdiction over AFT.
In 2019, the issue was again adjudicated by yet another constitution bench of the SC, and it was laid down that in terms of the decision in L Chandra Kumar, the HCs continued to have power of judicial superintendence over AFTs and a direct appeal to SC from the AFT was constitutionally prohibited.
The HC has also ruled that access to justice is an inalienable basic human right which cannot be denied and only issues that result in a ‘nationwide crises of confidence’ can be termed matters of “general public importance” and hence appeal to SC under Section 31 is not available.
