Administrative Tribunal and Court Compared: The Tests for a Tribunal and What the Classification Decides

A tribunal decides disputes, hears parties, takes evidence and gives binding decisions, and to the person appearing before it the experience is much like appearing before a court. The law nonetheless distinguishes them, and the distinction is not merely descriptive: whether a body is a tribunal determines whether an appeal lies to the Supreme Court under Article 136, whether a High Court may supervise it under Article 227, and what standards of independence the Constitution requires of it. The tests were worked out soon after the Constitution came into force, in cases about whether industrial adjudication and executive appellate decisions could be brought to the Supreme Court. This topic sets out those tests and the consequences.

1. The Foundational Test

📖 Bharat Bank Ltd. v. Employees of Bharat Bank Ltd., AIR 1950 SC 188

Facts: An Industrial Tribunal constituted under the Industrial Disputes Act made an award in a dispute between a bank and its employees. An appeal was sought to be brought to the Supreme Court under Article 136, which permits the Court to grant special leave from any judgment, decree, determination, sentence or order in any cause or matter passed or made by any court or tribunal. It was objected that an Industrial Tribunal is not a tribunal within the Article, because its function is not to adjudicate on existing rights according to law but to create new rights and to settle a dispute on considerations of social justice.

Held: The Supreme Court held the Industrial Tribunal to be a tribunal within Article 136 and the appeal competent. It held that the expression tribunal in Article 136 is wider than court and includes bodies which, though not courts, exercise judicial or quasi-judicial functions: what matters is whether the body is invested by the State with judicial power to determine questions affecting the rights of parties, whether it is required to act judicially and to arrive at its decision on evidence after hearing the parties, and whether its decision is binding. The Court held that these features were present notwithstanding that the Tribunal might in some respects create rights rather than merely declare them, and that the wide language of Article 136 was deliberately chosen so that no adjudicatory body should be beyond the Court's reach.

Ratio: Tribunal in Article 136 is wider than court and covers bodies invested with judicial power, required to act judicially on evidence after hearing parties, and giving binding decisions.

2. The Tests Refined

📖 Associated Cement Companies Ltd. v. P.N. Sharma, AIR 1965 SC 1595

Facts: An order was made by the State Government in exercise of a power to decide an appeal under industrial standing orders legislation. An appeal to the Supreme Court under Article 136 was objected to on the ground that the State Government is an executive authority and not a tribunal, so no appeal lay from its decision.

Held: The Supreme Court held the State Government, in deciding the appeal, to be a tribunal within Article 136. It held that the essential characteristic of a tribunal is that it is a body clothed with the State's inherent judicial power: the power exercised must be a judicial power of the State conferred on the body by statute, and not merely an administrative power, and the body must be required to decide a dispute between parties in a judicial manner. The Court held that the presence of some of the trappings of a court, such as a duty to hear the parties, to take evidence and to decide according to law, is indicative but not conclusive, and that the absence of some trappings does not deprive a body of the character of a tribunal. What is decisive is the source and nature of the power rather than the designation or the composition of the body, so an executive authority deciding a dispute judicially is a tribunal for this purpose.

Ratio: A tribunal is a body clothed with the State's inherent judicial power and required to decide a dispute judicially. The trappings of a court are indicative but not conclusive, and the designation of the body is immaterial.

3. The Comparison

Basis	Court	Administrative tribunal
Constitution	Part of the judicial hierarchy of the State	Created by a statute for a defined class of disputes
Jurisdiction	General, over all matters not excluded	Special and limited to the subject assigned
Composition	Judicial officers appointed under the constitutional scheme	Often mixed, with judicial, administrative and expert members
Procedure	The Code and the Evidence Act	Its own procedure, guided by natural justice
Evidence	Strict rules apply	Not bound by the Evidence Act
Representation	Advocates as of right	As the statute permits; often wider, including agents
Precedent	Stare decisis applies fully	Judicial discipline within the hierarchy; no general stare decisis
Basis of decision	Law alone	Law, and where the statute permits, policy, equity and expediency
Powers	Inherent powers including contempt	Only such powers as the statute confers, with incidental powers implied
Appeal	To the hierarchy of courts	As the statute provides, then Articles 136, 226 and 227
Speed and cost	Slower and more expensive	Intended to be quicker and cheaper

4. What the Classification Decides

Appeal under Article 136, which lies from any court or tribunal but not from a purely administrative authority (Bharat Bank).
Supervision under Article 227, which extends to all courts and tribunals within the High Court's territory.
Constitutional standards of independence, which apply where judicial functions of the courts have been transferred to the body.
Amenability to directions, since a tribunal deciding judicially cannot be controlled by executive instructions.
Incidental and ancillary powers, which are implied in a tribunal so that it may effectively exercise the jurisdiction conferred.
Judicial discipline, so that decisions of an appellate tribunal bind the authorities below it in the same hierarchy.
Not the applicability of natural justice, which binds administrative authorities as well.

5. Tribunal, Court and Administrative Authority

Feature	Court	Tribunal	Administrative authority
Source of power	Constitution or laws constituting courts	The statute, conferring judicial power of the State	The statute, conferring administrative power
Decides a lis	Always	Ordinarily	Not necessarily
Basis of decision	Law	Law, and policy where permitted	Policy, expediency, subjective satisfaction
Article 136	Available	Available	Not available
Article 227	Available	Available	Not as such
Bound to act judicially	Yes	Yes	Must act fairly

⚠ The body's name and composition do not answer the question

The tests in these cases are framed in terms of the nature and source of the power, and that framing matters because the intuitive indicators are unreliable. A body called a tribunal may perform functions to which none of the consequences attach. A State Government, which is the executive in its plainest form, was held to be a tribunal because the power it exercised was the judicial power of the State exercised in a judicial manner. The presence of lawyers, a hearing room and a formal procedure is suggestive but not decisive, and the absence of some of those trappings does not deprive a body of the character of a tribunal. The enquiry is always: what power was conferred, and how does the statute require it to be exercised?

6. The Position in Summary

Tribunal in Article 136 is wider than court and covers bodies invested with judicial power, required to act judicially on evidence after hearing parties, and giving binding decisions (Bharat Bank).
A tribunal is a body clothed with the State's inherent judicial power and required to decide a dispute judicially; the trappings of a court are indicative but not conclusive and the designation is immaterial (Associated Cement Companies).
Courts have general jurisdiction, judicial composition, strict procedure and inherent powers; tribunals have special jurisdiction, mixed composition, their own procedure and only the powers conferred.
The classification decides the availability of Articles 136 and 227, the constitutional standards of independence, amenability to directions, incidental powers and judicial discipline.
It does not decide the applicability of natural justice, which binds administrative authorities as well.

7. Related Topics and Provisions

Administrative Tribunals (Topic 124) and Constitutional Provisions on Tribunals (Topic 125).
Judicial vs Quasi-Judicial Function (Topic 195) and Administrative vs Quasi-Judicial Function (Topic 194).
Judicial Review of Tribunal Decisions (Topic 128) and Tribunal Independence (Topic 130).
Article 323A vs Article 323B (Topic 208).
Precedent in Administrative Decision-Making (Topic 191): judicial discipline in a tribunal hierarchy.
Constitution of India: Articles 136, 226, 227, 323A and 323B.