An Assessment of the Armed Forces Tribunal Act, 2007

 

The Armed Forces Tribunal Bill was introduced in parliament in December 2005. The President of India gave the final nod to the Bill on December 25, 2007. This was a significant development as it set up the nation’s first redressal forum to entertain the cases related to armed force personnel. The Act came into force with effect from 15th June, 2008.

 

The Armed Forces Tribunal is the military version of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT). The Union Cabinet approved the creation of 31 posts for the Armed Forces Tribunal, including one of chairperson and 29 members. The Tribunal will have a main bench headed by a chairperson, and other judicial and administrative members. While the chairperson will be a formal judge of Supreme Court or a former Chief Justice of High Court, judicial member will be retired High Court Judges, and administrative members will be from the armed forces. The Government has appointed Hon’ble Mr Justice AK Mathur, retired judge of the Supreme Court of India as the Chairperson of the Armed Forces Tribunal  with effect from 1 Sep 08.

 

The administrative members shall be officers of the rank of Major General or above in the Army or equivalent ranks in the Navy or Air Force with three years of service in that rank. Judge Advocate General (JAG) of three Services with at least one year of service as JAG shall also be eligible. The judicial member should be serving or retired judge of the High Court. All appointments to the Tribunal will be made in consultation with the Chief Justice of India. The Tribunal shall have powers to punish for its contempt. 

 

After the formation of the tribunal, all pending cases of army, navy and air force shall be transferred to it. The tribunal will not be restricted by Civil Procedure Code, but will be guided by concept of natural justice and related provisions as laid down in the Act. A further appeal of the decision of the tribunal can be made only to the Supreme Court.

 

The tribunal will have jurisdiction on all service matters except removal from the service under the president’s pleasure; transfers and postings; leave and summary tribunals etc. Retired personnel and their dependents can approach the tribunal for service related issues.

It has also been decided that a total of 15 benches will be created across India. Of these, three each shall be located in Delhi, Chandigarh and Lucknow, and one each in Calcutta, Guwahati, Mumbai, Kochi, Jaipur and Chennai. Delhi will be the principal bench and will have three courts and jurisdiction over High Courts in the state of Delhi. The Chandigarh bench will have jurisdiction over Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. The Lucknow bench will have jurisdiction over Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh. The Kolkata bench will have jurisdiction over West Bengal, Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Guwahati bench will have jurisdiction over Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. The Mumbai bench will have jurisdiction over Maharashtra, Goa and Gujarat. While Kochi bench will have jurisdiction over Kerala and Karnataka, Chennai bench will look after Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. The Jaipur bench will have jurisdiction over Rajasthan.

The Tribunal will have original jurisdiction in service matters and appellate jurisdiction in court martial matters. The Tribunal is empowered to grant bail to a military accused. However, an accused shall not be released if he has been charged with an offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life.

 

One of the laws continuing since the revolt of 1857 is the Summary Court Martial (SCM) against the person below the rank of Junior Commissioned Officer. This still is beyond the purview of this Act. The Summary Court Trial has deprived large number of army personnel from the job, pension and livelihood on the ground of discipline. So this is a defect in this Act, since it does not do away with the SCM which is arbitrary, colonial and violative of the constitutional rights enshrined in our constitution. Another problem is that the Armed Forces Tribunal Act does not provide any time frame within which it should decide an appeal.

Over 9,800 cases filed by service personnel are pending before various High Courts. The maximum number of cases numbering 2,487 will be transferred to the Chandigarh bench while 2,407 will be adjudicated by the Lucknow bench and 2306 are proposed to be transferred to the Delhi principal bench. The setting up of the Armed Forces Tribunal will fulfill a long-felt need of the country’s three defence services and it will also make the armed forces more lucrative, especially after the good packages coming from the Sixth Pay Commission. 

 

 

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views either of the Editorial Committee or the Centre for Land Warfare Studies)