Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
A.M. Ahmadi, C.J.I., M.M. Punchhi, K. Ramaswamy, S.P. Bharucha, Saiyed Saghir Ahmad, K. Venkataswami and K.T. Thomas

ORDER

A.M. Ahmadi, C.J.

1. The special leave petitions, civil appeals and writ petitions which together constitute the present batch of matters before us owe their origin to separate decisions of different High Courts and several provisions in different enactments which have been made the subject of challenge. Between them, they raise several distinct questions of law; they have, however been grouped together as all of them involve the consideration of the following broad issues:

(1) Whether the power conferred upon Parliament or the State Legislatures, as the case may be, by Sub-clause (d) of Clause (2) of Article 323A or by Sub-clause (d) of Clause (3) of Article 323B of the Constitution, totally exclude the jurisdiction of 'all courts', except that of the Supreme Court under Article 136, in respect of disputes and complaints referred to in Clause (1) of Article 323A or with regard to all or any of the matters specified in Clause (2) of Article 323B, runs counter to the power of judicial review conferred on the High Courts under Articles 226/227 and on the Supreme Court under Article 32 of the Constitution?

(2) Whether the Tribunals, constituted either under Article 323A or under Article 323B of the Constitution, possess the competence to test the constitutional validity of a statutory provision/rule?

(3) Whether these Tribunals, as they are functioning at present, can be said to be effective substitutes for the High Courts in discharging the power of judicial review? If not, what are the changes required to make them conform to their founding objectives?

2. We shall confine ourselves to the larger issues raised in this batch of matters without adverting to the specific facts of each of the matters; we shall, however, selectively refer to some of the impugned decisions and the provisions involved to the extent we find it necessary to do so in order to appreciate the policy- conflicts in, and to draw the parameters of, the co........