Madhya Pradesh High Court Advocates Bar Association and Anr. vs Union of India and Anr.
Background
Bar Associations of lawyers practicing in Jabalpur challenged the constitutional validity of several provisions of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) Act, 2010, arguing that the Bhopal seat chosen for the NGT bench covering Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan should instead have been at Jabalpur, the principal seat of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. They also argued that the Act unconstitutionally ousted the High Courts' writ jurisdiction under Articles 226/227 by providing a direct statutory appeal route from NGT orders straight to the Supreme Court, and that the Central Government's power to decide where NGT benches sit amounted to unconstitutional "excessive delegation" of legislative power.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that Sections 14 and 22 of the NGT Act do not oust the High Courts' constitutional writ jurisdiction, since that jurisdiction is part of the basic structure of the Constitution and cannot be extinguished by ordinary legislation; litigants remain free to approach the High Court under Article 226/227 even though a separate statutory appeal to the Supreme Court also exists. It found the direct appeal route to the Supreme Court under Section 22 constitutionally valid, noting the NGT itself was created at the Supreme Court's own urging and that requiring litigants to travel to Delhi for such appeals is no different from any other Article 32/136 litigant's position. It also rejected the "excessive delegation" argument regarding Section 3, since the Central Government's power to fix NGT bench locations is guided by the Act's objectives and by the Supreme Court's own ongoing oversight; and it upheld locating the Bench at Bhopal (not Jabalpur) as a rational, centrally-accessible choice for litigants from all three served states, noting Bhopal's low caseload undercut the Bar Association's push to relocate it. The writ petition was accordingly dismissed in full, with parties bearing their own costs.
Lesson Learnt
Setting up a specialised tribunal alongside existing courts, and giving it a direct statutory appeal route to a higher court, does not violate the Constitution so long as the ordinary writ jurisdiction of the High Courts remains intact: practical convenience for lawyers is not, by itself, a constitutional ground to dictate where a tribunal must sit.