Supreme Court: Taking note of the depleting strength of the members of the NCLT and NCLAT, the 3-judge bench of L. Nageswara Rao, Hemant Gupta and S. Ravindra Bhat, JJ has issued certain directions and has asked the Government to complete the reappointment process “at the earliest and not later than two months”.
The direction came in the petition filed by the National Company Law Tribunal and Appellate Tribunal Bar Association seeking direction to the Central Government
- to fill up the vacancies of Chairman, NCLAT and President of NCLT without any further delay.
- to issue letters of appointment to the candidates pursuant to the Selection procedure initiated in 2019 and to fill up the remaining vacancies of Members of NCLT and NCLAT.
- to extend the term of six Members of the NCLT and NCLAT for a further period of five years as they are completing the tenure by June, 2021.
The Additional Solicitor General Balbir Singh had told the Court that the process for appointment of candidates who have been selected pursuant to the procedure which was initiated in 2019 shall be expedited and orders of appointment shall be issued soon. In respect of the process to be initiated for filling up the existing vacancies, a search cum Selection Committee has to be constituted. The Court, hence, directed that the Selection Process shall be initiated at the earliest.
On the issue of extension of the term of the Members of the NCLT and NCLAT who are completing their tenure in June, 2021 is concerned, Attorney General KK Venugopal submitted that the government has initiated the process for reappointment by requesting the Chief Justice of India to constitute a committee for the purposes of the reappointment of members to the NCLT and NCLAT.
As per Section 413 of the Company’s Act 2013, the President or other members of the Tribunal shall hold office for a period of 5 years and shall be entitled for reappointment for another term of 5 years.
The petitioner, however, requested that the members who are completing their tenure should be permitted to continue till the process of reappointment is completed.
“… there are 39 members at present for a sanctioned strength of 63 and the depletion of the strength of the members will adversely affect the smooth functioning of the Tribunals.”
The Court, hence, directed the Government to complete the process within two months and said,
“As the Government has already initiated the process of reappointment by writing to the Hon’ble Chief Justice, we trust and hope that the reappointment process should be completed expeditiously, as there is no necessity of issuance of any advertisement for participation of other eligible candidates. Reappointment of members can be considered separately without waiting for the process of fresh appointments to commence.”
[National Company Law Tribunal and Appellate Tribunal Bar Association v. Ministry of Corporate Affairs, 2021 SCC OnLine SC 406, order dated 31.05.2021]
For Petitioner(s) Mr. A.S. Chandhiok, Sr. Adv. Mr. Virender Ganda, Sr. Adv. Mr. Ajay Kumar Jain, Adv Mr. Rakesh Kumar, Adv Mr. Vipul Ganda, Adv Mr. Vishal Ganda, Adv Mr. Satyajit A. Desai, Adv. Mrs. Anagha S Desai, AOR Ms. Aastha Trivedi, Adv Ms. Guresha Bhamra, Adv Mr. Tejasvi Chaudhry, Adv Mr. Satya Kam Sharma, Adv.
For Respondent(s) Mr. KK Venugopal, Ld. AG Mr. Balbir Singh, Ld. ASG Mr. R. Balasubramanium, Sr. Adv. Mr. Zoheb Hossain, Adv Ms. Shradha Deshmukh, Adv. Ms. Chinmayee Chandra, Adv. Mr. Shyam Gopal, Adv. Mr. Ankur Talwar, Adv. Ms. Suhasini Sen, Adv. Mr. Gurmeet Singh Makker, AOR