Agency.The Union government of India proposes to bring a bill in the Parliament to reduce the existing number of tribunals from the present strength of 36 to 18. The reason advocated behind such a move is that most of them are performing similar functions. The decision to reduce the number of tribunals was “unanimously” taken by a group of secretaries last year.
These tribunals were established by statute. Presently, tribunals are handled by various ministries. A Constitution bench of the Supreme Court of India had in the past suggested that these tribunals should be brought under the administrative control of the Law Ministry.
According to a reliable government source, the mechanism to trim the number of tribunals by either merging them or abolishing them will be done in phases. Recently, the department of legal affairs had communicated to all union ministries and departments to provide details of tribunals currently functioning under their administrative control.
