The National Tribunal Commission (NTC) has now become a reality after the Lok Sabha passed the Tribunal Reforms Bill, 2026, on 10 August and the Rajya Sabha passed it the next day, without a debate and amid bedlam in the legislating halls. The NTC has been envisaged as an apex regulator for various tribunals in India, its primary task being to independently appoint bench members.
Unfortunately, the bill in its current form fails to recognize or tackle the core structural problems that bedevil tribunals across the country.
The Bill seeks to repeal the earlier Tribunal Reforms Act of 2021, which provided for appointments and service conditions of members in various tribunals. A new legislation with altered appointment and service conditions had become necessary after the Supreme Court in November struck down certain provisions of the 2021 Act for militating against democratic principles, which mandate separation of powers and independence of the judiciary.
Also, the Supreme Court felt that the Act reproduced verbatim from the Tribunal Reforms Ordinance, which it had declared unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court bench had then directed the setting up of an independent NTC to independently appoint members to other tribunals, rather than the government selecting them. The government, heeding the apex court’s direction, has brought in changes that now seek to empower the NTC through the appointment of a former high-ranking judiciary member as chairman, who will be assisted by two other former senior judiciary members and another two technical members.
But some sticking points remain. The government’s decision to introduce the 2026 Bill, investing the NTC with a modicum of autonomy, came only after it was upbraided by the Supreme Court, with the bench calling out the executive for trying to intrude into judicial areas. It is, therefore, not surprising that the Bill’s architecture still has some shortcomings, which could potentially undermine the independence of the new commission. Here is how.
The Bill outlines the appointment process for the NTC’s chairman. The government, in consultation with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, will appoint the NTC chairman and the other two former judicial members.
This is where things can slide, with the potential of tying up the NTC in future legal suits. Given the short tenures of recent Supreme Court chief justices and questions being asked about the collegium’s workings, the selection panel should have a third leg, ideally the leader of opposition.
It is vital that such a key quasi-judicial body should not only be deemed independent on paper but also be seen as one. It should be above all suspicion and doubt.
Further, the NTC’s secretariat will be overseen by a senior bureaucrat, providing the government another conceivable lever of influence. That is not all. The NTC’s search-cum-selection committee to appoint chairpersons to other tribunals will also feature another secretary-level bureaucrat, to be nominated by the government.
The second source of anxiety is a conspicuous gap: the 2026 bill omits the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) from its purview, though the appellate body—the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal—has been included.
The NCLT is tasked with resolving insolvency cases speedily, but has been found dragging its feet in many cases, over-shooting the legal deadline for resolution and causing delays in routine corporate bankruptcy cases.
One problem is its lack of capacity, with vacancies hobbling almost all regional benches. Plus, many judges have been found wanting in their knowledge of the intricacies involved in corporate insolvencies, which also adds to delays.
The NCLT’s shortcomings are representative of the problems that plague almost all tribunals and appellate authorities across India’s judicial landscape. As earlier reported in these columns, the Consumer Justice Report 2026, published by the team that comes out with the annual India Justice Report, found that presidents had not been appointed to multiple state and district consumer dispute redressal commissions.
Their bench strength is perennially short of the sanctioned number and staff shortages abound. In fact, the Supreme Court on 13 August took note of the rising pendency of consumer cases across the country and asked the National Commission to file a detailed report on the backlog of cases and bench strength across various consumer tribunals.
Tribunals were envisaged to reduce the caseload of the Supreme Court and high courts, which were already burdened by a huge backlog. The crisis in consumer dispute redressal forums highlights the government’s casual approach to tribunal caseloads even as it seems keen to control their recruitment and other micro-processes.
The executive, across political formations, has also tended to throw new bodies at old problems, without tackling some of the structural fault-lines. The moot question here is whether the 2026 Bill, empowering the NTC, can close bridge the capacity gaps in many of these specialized tribunals—such as the National Green Tribunal and Securities Appellate Tribunal.
There is a tacit assumption here that the NTC’s high-powered bench can, through the selection process, close those gaps. This needs to be watched closely.
The author is a senior journalist and author of ‘Slip, Stitch and Stumble: The Untold Story of India’s Financial Sector Reforms’ @rajrishisinghal