Tribunals

• The original Constitution did not contain provisions with respect to tribunals. The 42nd Amendment Act 1976 introduced provision for tribunals in accordance with the recommendations of the Swaran Singh Committee.
• Article 323-A deals with Administrative Tribunals.
• Article 323-B deals with tribunals for other matters.
• The term ‘Tribunal’ is derived from the word ‘Tribunes’, which means ‘Magistrates of the Classical Roman Republic’.
  • Tribunal is referred to as the office of the ‘Tribunes’ i.e., a Roman official under the monarchy and the republic with the function of protecting the citizen from arbitrary action by the aristocrat magistrates.
• A Tribunal, generally, is any person or institution having an authority to judge, adjudicate on, or to determine claims or disputes – whether or not it is called a tribunal in its title.
• Tribunals are institutions established for discharging judicial or quasi-judicial duties.
• The objective may be to reduce the caseload of the judiciary or to bring in subject expertise for technical matters. 
• It performs a number of functions like adjudicating disputes, determining rights between contesting parties, making an administrative decision, reviewing an existing administrative decision and so forth.

Need for Tribunal in India:

• To overcome the situation that arose due to the pendency of cases in various Courts, domestic tribunals and other Tribunals have been established under different Statutes, hereinafter referred to as the Tribunals.
• The Tribunals were set up to reduce the workload of courts, to expedite decisions and to provide a forum which would be manned by lawyers and experts in the areas falling under the jurisdiction of the Tribunal.
• The tribunals perform an important and specialized role in the justice mechanism. They take load off the already overburdened courts. They hear disputes related to the environment, armed forces, tax and administrative issues.