The Court in every ruling reiterated the same constitutional grounds of Articles 14, 21 and 50, and the doctrine that separation of powers requires these tribunals to be free of the government whose decisions they review. This 2026 Act is Parliament’s latest, long-awaited reply to this series of litigation. The Bill repeals the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021, whose provisions were struck down by the Supreme Court.
Some key features of the repealed Act that have been addressed now are, firstly, the tenure of the members, which has now been increased to 5 years from the earlier limit of 4 years. Secondly, the former Act fixed a minimum age of 50 for being a member at a tribunal, which the Bill seems to have dropped; however, the appointment regulations are awaited in this regard. Thirdly, it allowed the government to pick from a two-name shortlist for every vacancy, which the Supreme Court struck down as arbitrary and executive-friendly. In response, the new Act moves to a single recommended name (plus one on a waiting list). It also introduces a National Tribunals Data Grid, finally addressing a long-standing complaint on lack of reliable, systematically published performance data on tribunals. These are the easy wins for the Act.
However, the Supreme Court’s deeper objection to the 2021 law was that it let the executive, the single largest litigant before these tribunals, control who judges its own cases. Under the old, struck-down 2021 law, the CJI himself or a sitting Supreme Court judge they nominated headed the SSC for most tribunals. Under the new legislation, that power passes to the NTC’s own Commission Chairperson, a person the Central Government appoints after “consulting” the CJI. Objectively, this is not a bureaucrat’s seat; the Chairperson must himself be a retired Supreme Court judge or retired High Court Chief Justice. What has changed is not whether a judge sits in the chair, but who decides which judge does. However, if courts apply the concurrence-style reading used for judicial appointments, the CJI’s view could carry more practical weight. Alternatively, the fate of these provisions depends on the definition of the word “consultation” that is yet to be defined.
How the rest of the provisions on the design of the commission will be put in practice remains to be seen. SSC voting seats are split evenly between judicial and government-linked members, with ties broken by the Commission’s Chair. Technical Members’ qualifications are
left to rules the Central Government will write later. The Commission’s secretariat head is a government appointee, not a Commission appointee. In furtherance, the expert committee empanelled for the assessment of applications is appointed by the secretariat. Discipline against tribunal members starts with a preliminary screening by the same parent ministry that often litigates before them. And funding remains a discretionary annual grant, subject to Parliamentary appropriation with a charge on the Consolidated Fund of India.
That funding point deserves particular attention, because Parliament’s own scrutiny already flagged it. The 166th Report of the Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on “Review of Functioning of Tribunal System in the Country” tabled just three days before the Lok Sabha passed this Bill, found that financial autonomy is “a prerequisite for institutional independence”. The Bill that followed three days later does not reflect the same.
Performance evaluation of tribunals is one of the key responsibilities of the commission. This is an opportunity for the commission to establish benchmarks for evaluating adjudicatory institutions and moving beyond annual reports being treated as performance evaluation. Other omissions are older by now. The National Company Law Tribunal, arguably India’s most consequential commercial forum, has sat outside every reform attempt since 2017. There is still no mandatory Judicial Impact Assessment before Parliament creates a new tribunal, despite research warning against “over-tribunalisation” for years.
Tracing the pre-existing underlying pattern, the rule-making power over appointments, salaries, tenure and service conditions for the Commission and for tribunal members alike stays with the Central Government. Regulation-making power, covering the Commission’s own internal and procedural matters, sits with the Commission, subject to Parliament’s approval. Additionally, removal or resignation of Commission members and tribunal members is still routed through the Central Government.
There are clearly some positive takeaways from the 2026 Act. Enhanced tenure, a Commission with a mandate, for the first time, to evaluate the functioning of any adjudicatory institution, and a National Tribunals Data Grid are progressive moves worth building on. The Act’s own Statement of Objects and Reasons already sets the benchmark against which it should be assessed. It records that the Supreme Court found the 2021 Act’s provisions “contrary to the principles of separation of powers and judicial independence,” and hence, the Act was framed in consonance with that very line of directions. However, this new legislation still leans on the Central Government in ways the Court’s independence jurisprudence was meant to correct. The task ahead, then, is narrower than a rewrite; it is a matter of furnishing the finer details in adherence to the Act’s own words and objectives, in letter and in spirit.
