AFT’s larger bench rules that tribunal has powers of contempt, giving it teeth to get orders implemented

Vijay Mohan

Chandigarh, July 31
A larger Bench of Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) on Wednesday ruled that it  possesses the powers of contempt to get its orders implemented in case there is wilful non-compliance by the respondents.

The judgment will now give much-needed teeth to AFT to get its orders, which in many instances were being ignored by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), implemented.

The larger bench was constituted in the year 2014 when a two-member bench at Delhi had expressed apprehensions in following a judgment of the Kerala High Court which had directed the Kochi Bench to invoke powers of contempt in case of non-compliance by defence authorities.

The landmark judgment running into more than 500 pages with appendices and perhaps the longest in the tribunal’s history, interpreted Section 29 of the AFT Act and Rule 25 of the AFT Rules to hold that the legislature did not intend keeping the AFT toothless.

The Bench, comprising Justice Anu Malhotra, Lt Gen CP Mohanty and Rear Admiral Dhiren Vig observed that more than 5,000 of the Tribunal’s orders are lying unimplemented without any stay from the High Court or the Supreme Court.

The bunch matter referred to the larger bench included cases filed by Lt Col Mukul Dev in the year 2014 at the Kolkata Bench and suo-moto contempt proceedings initiated by the Chandigarh Bench.

Marathon hearings were held in the case in April and May this year with Additional Solicitor General Vikramjit Banerjee along with Anil Gautam, representing the government and Rajiv Manglik representing the litigants. The court had appointed lawyers Rajshekhar Rao and Navdeep Singh from the Delhi and the Punjab and Haryana High Courts, respectively, to assist the larger bench as amici curiae without taking sides.

In the past, the Punjab and Haryana Court has come down heavily upon the MoD for non-implementation of the AFT’s orders. The Supreme Court and various high courts have also passed strong observations against the MoD for filing frivolous appeals against disabled personnel and other pensioners in settled matters. The approach of the MoD has also drawn flak from the government’s own panels and committees.

Veteran organisations and lawyers point out that since late 2023, the MoD and the defence services are flooding all high courts and the Supreme Court with thousands of cases against military pensioners, including those on the same subjects which had been withdrawn from the courts on orders of the then defence ministers Manohar Parrikar and Nirmala Sitharaman.

Lawyers associated with military cases point out that writ petitions and appeals being filed by the MoD and the defence services are not only affecting the resources of the government and are burdening the exchequer with high litigation costs, but are also clogging the courts all over the country with cases against a vulnerable section of the society such as disabled veterans and widows.