HC stays IAS officer's appointment as S-T Tribunal head

HC stays IAS officer's appointment as S-T Tribunal head
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

NEW DELHI, JULY 9: The Delhi High Court has stayed the appointment of an IAS officer as the chairman of the Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal (STAT) on a petition alleging that such an appointment converted a judicial forum into an administrative body.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice D K Jain on Friday ordered that newly-appointed chairman K Sethuraman would not function as a member of STAT and asked the Lt Governor to file a reply to the petition by August 17, the next date of hearing.

Sethuraman, who was also the commissioner for food and civil supplies with the Delhi Government, has been asked to file a reply to the petition after petitioners' counsel Wazir Singh submitted that the notification appointing the new chairman was ``illegal and contrary to precedents''.

The petition, filed by Manoj Garg and Ajay K Chowdhury, said converting the one-member tribunal into a two-member body and making an administrative member the head of the panel would leave the judicial member's voice ``redundant and illusory''.

The petitioners said that the function of the judicial member would be redundant as the two members appointed could not hold the court separately and independently and decision of the chairman would be final.

Besides, the government had not framed any rule yet to select one of the members as chairman of the Tribunal, the petition said.

The petition said that conversion of the single-member tribunal to a two-member body would not help in speedy, early and first disposal of matters as the statute has not provided for the members to hold different benches.

Earlier while hearing the petition, the court had on July four said Sethuraman should not join as member of the stat though he had assumed the charge of the office the next day.

The petition said the appointment of Sethuraman for three years on deputation was illegal as he ``neither fulfills the eligibility condition nor is entitled to be appointed as he was 59 years of age as on the date of the appointment'' and his appointment was violative of a provision of the Delhi Sales Tax Act, 1975.

It said the post of the non-judicial member was neither advertised nor circulated departmentally to provide equal opportunity to candidates having requisite qualifications to compete for the post.

The Lt Governor was empowered to make the appointment to the post following devolution of power to the state government to appoint member to the tribunal and oversee the operation of the tribunal in January 1998.

The petition said before 1998, all previous members of the tribunal used to be from the higher judiciary since its inception in 1975 and therefore the decision of the tribunal was against the precedent.