KUDRAT SANDHUversusUNION OF INDIA AND ANR.

956                      [2018]REPORTS
               SUPREME COURT   10 S.C.R. 956                 [2018] 10 S.C.R.


A                             KUDRAT SANDHU
                                        v.
                        UNION OF INDIA AND ANR.
                       (Writ Petition (C) No. 279 of 2017)
B                              AUGUST 21, 2018
            [DIPAK MISRA, CJI, A. M. KHANWILKAR AND
                   DR. D. Y. CHANDRACHUD, JJ.]
            Tribunal: Age of superannuation – CESTAT – Member
      (Judicial) – A person selected as Member of the CESTAT shall
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      continue until the age of 62 years while a person holding the post
      of President shall continue until the age of 65 years.
            Tribunal: Age of superannuation – AFT – Members of the
      Armed Forces Tribunal shall hold office until the attainment of the
      age of 65 years – Chairpersons who have been former Judges of
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      the Supreme Court shall hold office until the attainment of the age
      of 70 years.
            CAT: In the case of the Central Administrative Tribunal, the
      old rules/provisions shall continue to apply.
E           CIVIL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION : Writ Petition (Civil) No. 279
      of 2017
            Under Article 32 of the Constitution of India
                                      WITH

F           W.P. (C) Nos. 558/2017, 561/2017, 640/2017, 1016/2017, 788/2017,
      925/2017, 1098/2017, 1129/2017, 33/2018, 205/2018, 467/2018, T.C. (C)
      Nos. 49/2018 and 51/2018.
             K. K. Venugopal, AG, Ms. Aishwarya Bhati, AAG, Ashok Kumar
      Panda, Arvind P. Datar, Sidharth Luthra, Amarendra Sharan, Mrs. Prem
      Lata Bansal, Sr. Advs., Tejaswi Kumar Pradhan, Satyabrata Panda,
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      Manoranjan Paikaray, Aniruddha Purushotham, Shashwat Panda, Nikhil
      Nayyar, N. Sai Vinod, Dhananjay Baijal, Divyanshu Rai, Karan Batura,
      Ms. Anushree Prashit Kapadia, Arun Monga, Ms. Divya Sharma,
      Ms. Mayuri Raghuvanshi, Ms. Ruchira Goel, Muhammad A. Khan,
      R. V. Prabhat, Abishek Jebraj, Nikhil Swami, Omar Hoda, A. K. Behera,
H     V. K. Verma, Mrs. Priya Hingorani, Kripa Shankar Prasad, Rupesh
                                        956
      KUDRAT SANDHU v. UNION OF INDIA AND ANR.                                957


Kumar, Rajeev Sharma, Pravesh Bahuguna, Karbppaiah Meyyappan,                 A
Anand Varma, Ms. Shubhanghi Jain, Ms. Manpreet Kaur, K. Krishna
Kumar, Annam D. N. Rao, A. Venkatesh, Sudipto Sircar, Rahul Mishra,
Ms. Diksha Rai, Ms. Palak Mahajan, R. Balasubramanian,
S.S. Shamshery, Ms. Rukhmani Bobde, Harish V.Shekhar, Ms. Shradha
Deshmukh, Rohit Bhat, Ms. Aarti Sharma, Santosh Kr. Vishwakarma,
                                                                              B
Arvind Kumar Sharma, G. S. Makker, Raj Bahadur Yadav, Mukesh Kumar
Maroria, Mrs. Anil Katiyar, Vishnu B.Saharya, Viresh B. Saharya (for
M/s Saharya & Co.), Jagjit Singh Chhabra, Puspraj Singh, Ms. Chitrangda
Rastravara, Ms .Smitakshi Talukdar, Rahul Jain, Zoheb Hossain, Ashok
Mathur, Ajay Veer Singh Jain, Ms. Mamta Jain, Uday Ram Bokadia,
Ms. Divya Garg, Sonal Jain, Ajay Bansal, Gaurav Yadava, Mrs. Veena            C
Bansal, Nachiketa Joshi, Ms. Sucheta, Ujjaval Kumar, Advs. for the
appearing parties.
      The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
        DR. D. Y. CHANDRACHUD, J. 1. By an order dated 20 March
2018, we had clarified the previous order dated 9 February 2018. Clause       D
(iii) of the clarifications is relevant and reads as follows:
        “(iii) The tenure of the Chairperson and the Judicial/
        Administrative/Expert/Technical Members of all the Tribunals
        shall be for a period of five years or the maximum age that was
        fixed/determined under the old Acts and Rules;”                       E

On 16 July 2018, this Court issued the following directions in regard to
the age of the superannuation of Member of the Income Tax Appellate
Tribunal:
        “At this juncture, we may note that there is some confusion with      F
        regard to the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) as regards
        the age of superannuation. We make it clear that the person
        selected as Member of the ITAT will continue till the age of 62
        years and the person holding the post of President, shall continue
        till the age of 65 years.”
                                                                              G
CESTAT:
       2. In IA 113281 of 2018, the applicant is an Additional District and
Sessions Judge in the State of West Bengal, who has been selected as
Member (Judicial) in the CESTAT. The notification of appointment of
six officers who have been selected as Member (Judicial), including the
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958              SUPREME COURT REPORTS                         [2018] 10 S.C.R.


A     applicant, stipulates that they shall hold office for a period of five years
      or till attaining the age of 62 years, whichever is earlier “in terms of the
      Hon’ble Supreme Court’s order dated 20 March 2018". A member of
      the judicial service would have ordinarily continued until the date of
      superannuation in the state judicial service, subject to the service rules.
      It would be manifestly inappropriate to adopt an interpretation as a result
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      of which, upon assuming office as Member (Judicial) in CESTAT the
      officer will have a tenure which will expire after five years, if it falls
      prior to attaining the age of 62 years. We, accordingly, are of the view
      that the clarification issued for the ITAT in the order dated 20 March
      2018 needs to be reiterated in the case of the members of the CESTAT,
C     which we do.We clarify that a person selected as Member of the CESTAT
      will continue until the age of 62 years while a person holding the post of
      President shall continue until the age of 65 years.
      AFT:
             3. Members of the Armed Forces Tribunal shall hold office until
D     the attainment of the age of 65 years. Chairpersons who have been
      former Judges of the Supreme Court shall hold office until the attainment
      of the age of 70 years.
      CAT:

E            4. In the case of the Central Administrative Tribunal, we clarify
      that the old rules/provisions shall continue to apply.
            5. We direct the Union government to file a status report before
      this Court within a period of two weeks setting out position with respect
      to each Tribunal, including the vacancies and the stage of the selection
F     process.IA No.113281 of 2018 is disposed of accordingly.


      Devika Gujral                                                  IA disposed of.




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