The Tribunals Reforms Act, 2026: An Old Wine and a Recipe for Bad Law

“THE TRIBUNAL REFORMS ACT, 2021 is a replica of the struck-down Ordinance; old wine in a new bottle, the wine whets not the judicial palate, but the bottle merely dazzles.” Justice K. Vinod Chandran noted in his concurring opinion in Madras Bar Association v. Union of India (2025). The Supreme Court in Madras Bar Association struck down provisions of the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021 and directed the Government to establish a National Tribunals Commission (‘NTC’) within four months. It reiterated the directions contained in Rojer Mathew v. South Indian Bank (2019), delivered by the Constitution Bench calling for an independent body to oversee the functioning of tribunals and insulate their administration from executive control.

In response, the Government has now brought the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2026. The Act establishes the NTC and repeals the earlier regime. In several respects, it is an improvement on its predecessor. It restores tenure, provides uniform service conditions and brings some certainty to pending appointments. However, the more consequential issue is whether the new law has removed the defect identified by the Court, or retained the same arrangement in more cleverly drafted terms.

The short answer is no. It has not remedied the situation to any substantial extent. The Act is riddled with fundamental issues and ambiguities. At the first glance three provisions are problematic: who appoints the NTC, who controls the Search-cum-Selection Committee (‘SCSC’), and who decides the qualifications of tribunal members. The third issue has not yet been tested, but the Act leaves it to rules made by the Government.

A familiar haste in Parliament

For starters, the Bill itself received little parliamentary scrutiny. The Lok Sabha passed it on August 10 without discussion, amid protests over the police response to demonstrations concerning the NEET paper leak. The Rajya Sabha cleared it the next day, again amid Opposition protests. The Bill received the President’s assent on August 13. The concern is the speed with which legislation carrying such significant implications for judicial independence was pushed through Parliament without meaningful deliberation.

The 2026 Act thus followed the 2021 Act almost beat for beat. In 2021, Chief Justice N.V. Ramana, during the proceedings, had to ask the Solicitor General to place before the Court the parliamentary debates and the Government’s reasons for enacting the 2021 Act and reintroducing provisions that had already been struck down. To the sheer embarrassment of the entire process, the Court observed: “It is a serious issue... tribunals have to continue or to be shut down.” The Court was also pointing to the cavalier manner in which the appointment and administration of tribunals had been handled. The episode was another reminder that the problems surrounding tribunals had been before the Government and the courts for decades, without any lasting resolution.

The long history of executive control

Tribunals were conceived on twin ideas: that specialists could resolve technical disputes more efficiently, and that they could ease the burden on regular courts. But S.P. Sampath Kumar (1986) and L. Chandra Kumar (1997) also recognised the problem of tribunals being controlled by Ministries whose decisions they review. L. Chandra Kumar called for an independent body to oversee them – the recommendation never worked out. Instead, the Finance Act, 2017 left members’ qualifications and service conditions to rules framed by the Union Government, deepening executive control.