Chandigarh, May 30
The administration and functioning of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) has come under the High Court’s scanner.

Taking up a public interest litigation (PIL) questioning the “excessive control” of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) over the appointments, rules, provisions, infrastructure and functioning of the AFT, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today issued notice to the Union Law and Defence Ministries.

The PIL, filed by president of the AFT Bar Association, Maj Navdeep Singh, pointed out that the Supreme Court had already held that tribunals could not be made dependent upon the sponsoring or parent ministries. To ensure their independence, these could only be supervised by the Law Ministry.

There have been earlier instances where the establishment and composition of the AFT has been challenged before the High Court. The Delhi High Court Bar Association had earlier moved a petition that the establishment of the AFT was against constitutional norms.

A petition was also moved before the Punjab and Haryana High Court questioning the legality and suitability of a retired military officer to adjudicate upon legal and criminal issues. The AFT was set up in 2009 to provide swift judicial redress to members of the armed forces as well as to reduce the workload of the high courts.

The PIL averred that as all orders by the AFT were to be passed against the MoD and that the same ministry was the parent ministry controlling the AFT, it seemed more of an extension of the state rather than an independent judicial body.

The PIL points out that out of 15 courts of AFT in the country, only three are functioning as the government had not appointed judicial members to fill in vacancies arising out of the retirements of earlier incumbents.

This has resulted in absolute absence of judicial remedy to serving and retired personnel in some areas. The Chandigarh Bench, having the largest jurisdiction of five states, was also partially functional with only one judicial member holding the fort against the sanctioned strength of three.