The Supreme Court on Wednesday quashed the Centre’s decision to fix a four-year tenure for members and chairpersons of tribunals and restored its earlier verdict by which their tenure was fixed at five years. A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao, Hemant Gupta and S Ravindra Bhat, by majority, set aside various provisions of the ordinance brought by the Centre after the apex court passed a slew of directions on selection and appointment of chairpersons and members of tribunals. It said that Section 184(11) prescribing tenure of four years is contrary to the principles of separation of powers and independence of judiciary “The insertion of Section 184(11) prescribing a term of four years for the chairpersons and members of tribunals by giving retrospective effect to the provision from May 26, 2017 is clearly an attempt to override the declaration of law by this court.

Therefore, Clauses (i) and (ii) of Section 184(11) are declared as void and unconstitutional,” Justice Rao said in his judgement which Justice Bhat also agreed with.

The bench also expressed concern over a large number of vacancies which have rendered the tribunals ineffective and said serious efforts needed to be made to streamline the appointments.

(With inputs from agencies)