Supreme Court Seeks Attorney General's Assistance In PIL Against Prolonged Vacant ITAT Posts

The Supreme Court today issued notice in a PIL concerning alarming and persistent administrative crisis affecting the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), which is one of the oldest quasi judicial bodies in the country and has been famously referred to as the “mother of all tribunals”.

A CJI Surya Kant led bench has also sought the Attorney General's assistance in the plea raising issue of grave constitutional and institutional importance of the systemic administrative collapse of the ITAT, caused by the prolonged and unexplained failure of the Union of India to fill sanctioned posts in its administrative and subordinate cadres.

The plea has been filed by Praveen Kumar Bansal, former Vice-President of the ITAT from March, 2017 to January 2018 at Mumbai Bench. Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi today appeared before the Supreme Court on behalf of Bansal.

Notably, President of the ITAT has been impleaded as a respondent in the present PIL as he is the administrative head of the Tribunal and presently exercising overall supervisory control over its functioning. The President, ITAT is also the concerned authority who has to pursue the process of appointment with the Department of Law & Justice on a regular proactive basis. Accordingly, the President, ITAT has been arrayed as a necessary and proper party to ensure that effective directions may be issued and implemented by the Supreme Court.

"Tribunal is presently functioning under a severe and unprecedented shortage of staff, with critical posts such as Deputy Registrar, Assistant Registrar, Private Secretaries, and other support staff remaining vacant for several years. In many cases, no appointments have been made since 2018, and Departmental Promotion Committees (DPCs), which are mandatory under service jurisprudence, have not been conducted from 2015 for Senior Private Secretary and from 2017 for subordinate staff," court has been told.

As per the petitioner, the process of filling promotional posts in the ITAT requires the holding of Departmental Promotion Committees (DPCs). However, the government has failed to conduct DPCs regularly with the last DPC for Senior Private Secretary and Private Secretary being held in 2015 and the last effective DPC for other subordinate staff held in July 2017.

Court has further been told that no appointments have been made to key administrative posts like the posts of Deputy Registrar and Assistant Registrar since 2018. As per the petition, 6 Deputy Registrar and 27 Assistant Registrar posts lie vacant. Additionally, 246 posts of the subordinate cadre also lie vacant which include posts like Senior Private Secretary, Private Secretary, Superintendent, Office Superintendent, Upper Division Clerk (UDC), Lower Division Clerk (LDC) and Multi-Tasking Staff (MTS).

"The impact of such vacancies is profound and far-reaching...Tribunal’s functioning has been severely impaired, leading to: a) delays in scrutiny and registration of appeals, b) frequent adjournments due to procedural defects, c) delay in pronouncement and communication of orders, and d) overall increase in pendency of cases," the plea filed through AOR Raghavendra Pratap Singh adds.

It is further stated that fue to the severe shortage of staff:

a) Hon’ble Members are compelled to perform clerical tasks such as typing and processing of orders;

b) Appeals are not properly scrutinized at the filing stage;

c) Procedural defects result in repeated adjournments;

d) Pronouncement and uploading of orders are delayed; and

e) Judicial time is diverted from adjudication.

It is the petitioner's case that the issue of vacancies in institutions under the Ministry of Law & Justice has also been acknowledged by the Parliamentary Standing Committee (2026), which emphasized the need for time-bound filling of vacancies to ensure proper functioning of such institutions.