New Delhi: In an outburst sure to embarrass the govt, Supreme Court Thursday slammed the ministry of corporate affairs for “completely hijacking” the two most important quasi-judicial financial adjudicatory bodies – National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and the appellate NCLAT.The stinging remarks came from a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana while hearing petitioners who have been complaining for the last few months about the shoddy infrastructure, lack of support staff and large vacancies hampering the work in NCLT, which in the financial year 2024-25 had approved resolution plans worth Rs 55,000 crore. The tribunal adjudicates corporate civil disputes, company law violations and insolvency proceedings.“The system, the tribunals, we are compelled to observe, has been completely hijacked by the ministry of corporate affairs. That is the problem. And that is impinging on the autonomy of these institutions. These are the things we must look into. The ministry wants to have a complete whip over these tribunals. That is what is most unfortunate,” said the CJI.The bench has sought detailed proposals on infrastructure and staffing from the presidents of NCLT and NCLAT in four weeks.
Contractual employees harassing judicial members, let past and present staff go: SC
Appearing for NCLT Bar Association, senior advocate Sanjiv Sen said the roofs of certain floors in the building housing NCLT are collapsing and have become unusable. A large number of posts of judicial and technical members are lying vacant, he said, adding that the most unfortunate part is that out of 320 regular posts in NCLT, 253 are vacant.At this juncture, senior advocate Meenakshi Arora said the ministry has outsourced recruitment of contractual employees to a foreign firm and that could jeopardise the integrity of the important financial adjudicatory body. She said the existing contractual employees have already rendered service for eight years and must not be displaced.CJI Kant said, “We are not approving contractual recruitment of employees. It must be done through the Union Public Service Commission or Staff Selection Commission.” When Arora said termination of contractual employees must be stayed, the bench said, “We will not do any such thing at the behest of contractual staff. We would like to give full autonomy to the presidents of NCLT and NCLAT on this issue. The only thing is how soon it should happen. ”The CJI said, “Contractual employment means backdoor entry. In Bombay for instance, I know how these contractual employees ran away with original files and FIRs had to be registered. They do not care about the judicial members or technical members. Some technical members are still manipulating certain things.”
“But these contractual employees are harassing the judicial members. So let the past and present contractual employees go. Let the autonomy of recruitment be with the president of the tribunals…. The heads of these tribunals are the most suitable persons to assist us in suggesting ways and means to smoothen and strengthen the day-to-day functioning of these two important tribunals, including requirements of land and buildings and safekeep of records.”