2023 (9) TMI 1364

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....r Mehta, Solicitor General, Kanu Agarwal, Saurabh Mishra, Ms. Vanshja Shukla, Priyanka Das, Chinmayee Chandra, Ankur Talwar, Rajat Nair, Mrs. Suhasini Sen, Sidddhant Kohli, Shradha Deshmukh, Shashank Bajpai, Agnish Aditya, Anmol, Shakti Singh, Kumar Kashyap, Ms. Pankhuri Shrivastava, Ms. Neelam Sharma, Rajeev Sharma, Ninad Laud, Ms. Nilanjani Tandon, Chirag Sharma, Lalit Allawadhi, Ms. Richa Sharma, Mayank Pandey, Ms. Monica Benjamin, Anandh Venkataramani, Mrs. Vijayalakshmi Venkataramani, Vinayak Mehrotra, Ms. Mansi Sood, Chitvan Singhal, Ms. Sonali Jain, Abhishek Kumar Pandey, Raman Yadav, Mahesh Thakur, Ms. Shivani, Mrs. Vipasha Singh, Ranvijay Singh Chandel, Ms. Manmeet Kaur Sareen, Achintya Dvivedi, Rahul Sharma, Advocates, Raj Bahadur....

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....Despite the decisions of this Court in Rojer Mathew v. South Indian Bank Limited represented by its Chief Manager & Ors. [(2020) 6 SCC 1, Madras Bar Association (1) v. Union of India & Anr. [(2021) 7 SCC 369] and Madras Bar Association (2) v. Union of India & Anr. [2021 SCC Online 4363] the Union Government has successively come out with a legislation which is identical to previous enactments which were struck down by this Court; and (v)     Out of the four judicial members, two, namely, those at Serial Nos. 3 and 4 of the previous order dated 3 March, 2023 had resigned from judicial service to join the CESTAT since the age of retirement stood at 62 years whereas one Judicial Member (Serial No. 2) was a practisi....

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....d between 26-5-2017 and 4-4-2021 provide for a higher tenure. In the process, interim directions given by this Court in Kudra Sandhu (supra) are also nullified. It would be relevant to refer to the directions issued by this Court i S.R. Bhagwat n Kudrat Sandhu (supra) on 9-2-2018. After taking the consent of the Learned Attorney General and making modifications incorporating his suggestions, this Court held that all selections to the post of Chairperson/Chairman, Judicial/Administrative Members shall be for a period as provided in the Act and the Rules in respect of all tribunals. On 16-7-2018, this Court directed that persons selected as Members of ITAT can continue till the age of 62 years and persons who were holding the post of Presiden....

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....tments after 4-4-2021 shall be governed by the Ordinance, as modified by the directions contained herein." 6. Likewise, the following principle has been set out in the concurring judgment of Justice S. Ravindra Bhat : "171. In my opinion, like in P. Venugopal (supra) the curtailment of tenure to five years, of these few individuals appointed as members of tribunals, who were entitled to continue in office in terms of the pre-existing enactments (upto the age of 62 years etc.) is arbitrary. Apart from the fact that the Union wishes to curtail their tenure despite the finality of directions of this court in Roger Mathew and MBA-III, there is no conceivable rationale. Nor has any overriding public interest been espoused a....