Validity of Act as Money Bill referred to a larger Bench
The Supreme Court passed an interim order on Wednesday that said appointments to tribunals would be on the basis of existing laws governing the relevant sectors, and not on the basis of rules framed under the Finance Act of 2017.
The five-judge Constitution Bench, comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices N V Ramana, D Y Chandrachud, Deepak Gupta, and Sanjiv Khanna, also ordered that the validity of the passage of the Finance Act 2017 as Money Bill should be decided by a larger Bench.
Money Bills contain provisions for imposing taxes and appropriating sums out of the Consolidated Fund of India, and only require passage in the Lok Sabha. A petition by former Union minister Jairam Ramesh, on which the apex court gave the interim order on Wednesday, contends that since the Finance Act 2017 included rules on appointments to 19 different tribunals, it should not have been passed as a Money Bill.
Part XIV of the Finance Act 2017 had amended various Acts to provide for new rules and appointments to various tribunals, including the industrial tribunal, Railway Claims Tribunal, National Green Tribunal, Armed Forces Tribunal, appellate tribunals for sectors such as telecom, aviation, highways, taxation, company law, and others. Section 184 of the same Act gave the Central government the powers to frame rules regarding the tribunals..
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