Allahabad High Court Takes Serious note On Transfer Of CAT Cases To Delhi Which Are Within The Territorial Jurisdiction Of Allahabad Bench
By Rajesh Pandey
The Allahabad High Court has taken a serious note of transfer of cases, which fall within the territorial jurisdiction of Allahabad bench of central administrative tribunal (CAT) to the principal bench of this tribunal at New Delhi.
In this backdrop, the high court has said that the chairman of principal bench of CAT, New Delhi has misinterpreted the provisions relating to case transfer power given to him under section 25 of Administrative Tribunal Act, 1985 for entertaining directly fresh petitions, which otherwise fall within the territorial jurisdiction of CAT, Allahabad bench.
Hearing a writ petition filed by one Rajesh Pratap Singh, Justice Ajit Kumar has directed the central government and other respondents to file a reply in this case within four weeks. The court has also directed to list this writ petition on July 17 for the next hearing.
Passing the above directives, the court observed, “Since the petitions have been entertained by the principal bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal, Delhi it has resulted in action of lawyers to abstain from work at Allahabad, as they complain that all the petitions are being entertained directly by Principal Bench at New Delhi only on the ground that districts falling in the western Uttar Pradesh are closer to New Delhi and this is how this petition has been directly preferred before this court”.
“The orders that have been passed by the chairman of the tribunal placed before this court raise a legal issue whether the chairman sitting at the principal bench of the tribunal could have entertained a fresh matter directly to decide the same merely on the ground of distance qua place of residence of a party.
If that be so, then every such case that may fall in terms of distance closer to Delhi would lie before the Principal Bench at New Delh, i completely denuding the exercise of power by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Allahabad Bench in terms of its territorial jurisdiction or any other bench in the country for that matter.
This, in my considered view, must not have been the object in incorporating the provision like Section 25 of the Act, 1985, while providing for different Benches in the courts like the one at Allahabad having territorial jurisdiction in matters of the entire western Uttar Pradesh, including Uttarakhand”, the court added.
“This is something like acquiring territorial jurisdiction by merely exercising power under section 25 of the Act, 1985, regularly, which the legislature did not provide for, while assigning territorial jurisdiction to the Central Administrative Tribunal Bench at Allahabad.
This is neither the idea nor the intendment while providing a power under Section 25 of the Central Administrative Tribunal Act, 1985”, the court added in its order dated May 12.
