Delegated Legislation and Administrative Tribunals

Parliament cannot write every rule itself, so it hands much of that job to the executive. This article covers that handover, and the tribunal built to settle disputes it creates.

1Delegated Legislation: What It Is, and Why It Exists

Definition

Parliament passes the law, the executive fills in the detail

The basic idea

Delegated legislation is law-making power that Parliament hands to the executive, through an enabling Act. Parliament sets the broad policy. The executive works out the technical detail.

Why Parliament does this

• Parliament has no time to debate every technical detail line by line.
• A law creating a new tax still needs hundreds of administrative specifics.
• Requiring a full Act for each small detail would overwhelm the legislative calendar.

Its three main forms, with examples

• Rules: detailed provisions made under a parent Act. For example, Parliament passes the Motor Vehicles Act. The Transport Ministry then writes the Motor Vehicles Rules, fixing details like the exact fees for a driving licence.
• Regulations: framed by statutory or regulatory bodies. For example, SEBI, a body created by an Act of Parliament, writes its own regulations on how mutual funds must disclose risk to investors.
• Bye-laws: made by local authorities, for their own areas. For example, a municipal corporation’s bye-law fixing parking fees, or banning honking near a hospital, only applies inside that city.

Orders and notifications

Orders and notifications are also forms of delegated legislation. Orders are executive directions issued under statutory authority. For example, an order under the Essential Commodities Act can fix a stock limit on onions during a price spike. Notifications formally announce decisions, like appointments or enforcement dates. A notification is how the government tells the public that a new labour code has come into force from a specific date.

2Two Constitutional Limits, and How They Get Enforced

Limits

Delegation has a ceiling, and it is checked in practice

The two limits, with examples

• Limit 1: the legislature cannot delegate its essential legislative functions. Deciding the broad policy, like what counts as a crime, is Parliament’s own job. It cannot hand that basic choice to a ministry.
• Limit 2: delegation must not become excessive, going beyond what the parent Act actually authorises. For example, an Act might let a department “make rules for its purposes.” If a rule under it starts taxing a new class of goods, that rule goes too far.

How the limits are enforced

Parliament requires rules to be laid before it, through debates, questions, and resolutions. Courts can separately strike down rules that are ultra vires the parent statute, meaning they go beyond its authority.

Courts have actually struck down rules for excessive delegation. In one well-known case, a government notification let an official decide which advertisements counted as “prejudicial to public interest” under a drugs law. That choice was entirely up to him. The Supreme Court struck the notification down. It said the choice was too vague and too wide to hand to one official. That shows the boundary gets enforced, not just stated on paper.

3The Central Administrative Tribunal: Why It Exists

CAT

A faster route for government employees’ service disputes

Founding

The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) was set up in 1985, under Article 323A. The Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 created it as a faster, more specialised alternative to ordinary courts.

What it does, with an example

• It resolves central and state government employees’ service disputes, outside the regular court system.
• Its specific job was reducing the regular courts’ service-dispute backlog.
• For example, say a central government clerk is denied a promotion they believe they earned. Or say they are transferred as a punishment, without a hearing. In either case, they can approach CAT directly, without filing a writ petition in a High Court first.

The Article 136 Exception

One court a tribunal can never shut out

The rule, with an example

A tribunal set up under Article 323A can exclude the jurisdiction of every other court over its disputes. It cannot exclude the Supreme Court’s own power under Article 136, to grant special leave to appeal. For example, an employee who loses their case at CAT cannot go straight to a High Court. But they can still ask the Supreme Court for special permission to appeal, under Article 136.

The 1997 ruling

In L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India (1997), the Court also ruled that High Courts keep judicial review over tribunal decisions.

Related mechanisms

• For related grievance-redressal mechanisms, including RTI, see Polity0022.
• For quasi-judicial bodies more broadly, see Polity0037.

4Current Affairs: A New Overseer for Every Tribunal

30 September 2026

Rules notified for the National Tribunals Commission

[Policy] What the rules say

• The Law Ministry issued the rules on 30 September 2026. They let the Commission appoint chairpersons and members to 16 tribunals and appellate bodies.
• The Commission chairperson gets ₹2.5 lakh a month. Its members get ₹2.25 lakh. Tribunal chairpersons and members get similar pay.
• The process to fill a tribunal vacancy must start at least six months before it arises.
• Search-cum-selection committees will judge candidates through expert review, personal interaction and, where needed, written exercises.
• The rules also set up a formal inquiry process for misconduct complaints.

Source: The Hindu

2025-2026

The Tribunals Reforms Act, 2026 becomes law

Timeline

• 19 November 2025: the Supreme Court strikes down parts of the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021, in Madras Bar Association v. Union of India, for undermining judicial independence.
• 10-11 August 2026: the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha pass the new Tribunals Reforms Bill.
• 13 August 2026: President Droupadi Murmu gives assent, repealing the 2021 law.

What the new Act creates

It creates an independent National Tribunals Commission, headquartered in Delhi, with a chairperson and four members, two judicial and two technical. The Commission appoints and oversees tribunal members across 16 tribunals, including CAT.

Source: Bar and Bench

7 August 2026

A parliamentary report finds strain across the tribunal system

What the 166th Report found

• ITAT’s pendency rose by 19,275 cases in just five months.
• TDSAT’s sanctioned strength has stayed at 52 posts since it was set up, despite a growing caseload.
• NGT has filled only 142 of its 166 sanctioned posts.
• More than 95% of NCLT’s workforce works on a contractual basis, which the Committee said hurts institutional memory.

Source: PIB

CAT’s own progress

On 4 August 2026, CAT Chairman Justice Ranjit Vasantrao More briefed the government on the tribunal’s reform progress. Since its founding, CAT has received over 10 lakh cases, and disposed of more than 9.32 lakh of them, a disposal rate above 93%. New benches now sit at Jammu and Srinagar, with circuit sittings at Puducherry, Leh, Kargil, and Vijayawada.

Source: PIB

5Great to Know

Pattern

Two ends of the same problem

6Exam Point of View