New Delhi, April 10 The Delhi High Court on Friday sought the Centre's response to a petition filed by a technical member of the National Company Law Tribunal challenging the appointment of Bachu Venkat Balaram Das as the acting president.
A bench of Justices C Hari Shankar and O P Shukla issued notices to the Centre, as well as Das, a judicial member of the tribunal, and asked them to file their replies.
According to the petitioner, the law mandates the appointment of the senior-most member, regardless of whether he is a judicial or technical member, as the acting president of the tribunal. He argued that since Das was appointed as a member prior to the current appointment, he could not have been made the acting president.
"Given the importance of the issue involved, let a reply to the petition be filed in four days," the bench ordered, listing the matter for hearing on April 20.
During the hearing, the bench orally stated that there was "prima facie substance" in the petitioner's case.
"If the statute says that the senior-most member has to be appointed, and he (the petitioner) is appointed prior to the present acting president, unless there is any other rule defining seniority, then it is prima facie evident that he is senior. If he is senior, then whether he is judicial or technical, and whatever the fate of the institution if he is made acting president, is irrelevant because the field is already occupied by the statute," it said.
The bench further stated that it would not "perpetuate" any "practice" of appointing judicial members as acting presidents if it is in contravention of the statute.
The petitioner had first approached the high court in March, stating that based on the date of joining, he was the senior-most member after the former president who retired on March 16.
Since there are no rules governing seniority among members, seniority must be decided based on the date of joining, and since Das joined the tribunal two weeks after the petitioner's appointment, the petitioner was senior to him, the plea said.
The petitioner was appointed as a technical member on October 1, 2021. Das, who became a judicial member on October 18, 2021, was appointed as the acting president on March 17.
The petitioner subsequently withdrew the petition on April 1 to approach the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) instead.
The petitioner filed the present petition after the CAT said it had no jurisdiction over the issue.
In its response to the earlier petition, the Centre said that Das was considered for the additional charge of acting president of the NCLT, following the "convention" of appointing the senior-most judicial member to the post.