Tribunalisation of justice was meant to reduce the burden on the higher judiciary, but repeated litigation over tribunal appointments suggests otherwise. Discuss with reference to recent Supreme Court judgments.

Articles 323-A and 323-B, inserted by the 42nd Amendment (1976), created tribunals to deliver speedy, specialised adjudication and decongest constitutional courts. Yet five rounds of Madras Bar Association litigation, culminating in the judgment of 19 November 2025 [1], show that the design of tribunals has itself become a standing docket before the Supreme Court.

The original promise

• Specialised adjudication: bodies like CAT, ITAT, NCLT and NGT apply technical law with domain expertise, sparing High Courts routine service, tax and company matters.
• Decongestion: transfer of whole jurisdictions out of the writ courts was expected to cut pendency.

Why the promise is only partly kept

• Judicial review survives: L. Chandra Kumar (1997) held High Court review under Article 226 to be basic structure, so tribunal orders return to the very courts they were to relieve — an extra tier, not a substitute.
• Contested service conditions: the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021 fixed a four-year tenure and a minimum age of 50 for members [2] — conditions already invalidated earlier — inviting fresh challenge.
• Repeated invalidation: in November 2025 the Court struck down these provisions as inconsistent with judicial independence and the basic structure, and directed the Union to constitute a National Tribunals Commission [1].
• Vacancy-driven paralysis: unsettled appointment rules leave tribunals under-staffed, so litigants revert to writ jurisdiction — burden shifts rather than lifts.
• Executive-judiciary friction: the Government has since told Lok Sabha that future tribunal law will holistically incorporate the Court's rulings on appointments, tenure and independence [3].

Tribunalisation has succeeded as specialisation but faltered as decongestion, because institutional autonomy was never settled alongside jurisdiction. A statutory National Tribunals Commission with an independent appointments process, fixed longer tenures and a single nodal ministry would end the litigation cycle and let tribunals finally deliver the relief Articles 323-A and 323-B envisaged.