L CHANDRA KUMAR Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The special leave petitions. civil appeals and writ petitions which together constitute the present batch of matters before us owe their origin to separate decisions of different High Courts and several provisions in different enactments which have been made the subject of challenge. Between them, they raise several distinct question of law; they have, however, been grouped together as all of them involve the consideration of the following broad issues:

(2.) We shall confine ourselves to the larger issues raised in this batch of matters without adverting to the specific facts of each of the matters; we shall, however, selectively refer to some of the impugned decisions and the provisions involved to the extent we find we find it necessary to do so in order to appreciate the policy-conflicts in, and to draw the parameters of, the controversy before us. The broad principles enunciated in this judgment will, at a later time, be applied by a Division Bench to resolve the disputes involved in each of the individual cases.

(3.) The present controversy has been referred to us by an order of a Division Bench of this Court, reported in (1995) 1 SCC 400 : (1995 AIR SCW 1200). which concluded that the decision rendered by a five-Judge Constitution Bench of this Court in S. P. Sampath Kumar v. Union of India, (1987) 1 SCC 124 : (AIR 1987 SC 386), needs to be comprehensively reconsidered. The order of the Division Bench, dated December 2, 1994, was rendered after it had considered the arguments in the first manner before us. C. A. No. 481 of 1989. where the challenge is to the validity of Section 5(6) of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985. After analysing the relevant constitutional provisions and the circumstances which led to the decision in Sampath Kumar's case (AIR 1987 SC 386), the referring Bench reached the conclusion that on account of the divergent views expressed by this Court in a series of cases decided after Sampath Kumar's case, the resulting situation warranted a "fresh look by a larger Bench over all the issues adjudicated by this Court in Sampath Kumar's case including the question whether the Tribunal can at all have an Administrative Member on its Bench, if it were to have the power of even deciding constitutional validity of a statute or (Article) 309 rule, as conceded in Chopra's case. The "post-Sampath Kumar cases" which caused the Division Bench to refer the present matter to us are as follows : J. B. Chopra v. Union of India. (1987) 1 SCC 422 : (AIR 1987 SC 357); M. B. Majumdar v. Union of India. (1990) 4 SCC 501 : (AIR 1990 SC 2263); Amulya Chandra Kalita v. Union of India, (1991) 1 SCC 181 ; R. K. Jain v. Union of India, (1993) 4 SCC 119 : (1993 AIR SCW 1899) and Dr. Mahabal Ram v. Indian Council of Agricultural Research. (1994) 2 SCC 401.