Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said he has informed the government of this and urged the court to continue the interim order in the meanwhile. (File)

The Supreme Court on Tuesday quizzed the government over the delay in filling up vacancies in various Tribunals and asked it to “urgently attend” to this.

“We will ask the Solicitor General to take instructions…. It is a perennial problem…Tribunal functioning has come to a standstill,” a bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, S K Kaul and B R Gavai observed as it extended by three months the tenure of National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) member V K Jain. Jain’s tenure was to end on May 29. Senior advocate Parag Tripathi submitted that there are seven vacancies in NCDRC at present — three judicial and four non-judicial posts — against the Commission’s sanctioned strength of 11.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said he has informed the government of this and urged the court to continue the interim order in the meanwhile.

He agreed it is a problem that needs to be attended to.

Justice Kaul said, “You keep forum to take away work from judiciary but then you do not man them and they come to a standstill…. It is creating a problem and we must express out displeasure at this; this should be attended to urgently.” The court also flagged the delay in appointment of judges whose names have been already cleared. Referring to vacancies in various high courts, Justice Kaul said the Supreme Court Collegium and the government are often not on the same page, and due to this a large number of recommendations do not go through.

“But what about the appointments that have been cleared? This cannot be allowed to continue,” the bench observed.

Tripathi suggested that existing members of tribunals scheduled to retire should be allowed to continue until new appointments are made by the government.

The bench said if the court allows extension of tenure to existing members then there will be no appointments by the government.