Supreme Court of India was hearing a plea by the Bar Council of Madhya Pradesh, for the issue of the transfer of jurisdiction of DRT at Jabalpur to DRT at Lucknow as it was confusing to lawyers in the matter of jurisdiction. The case came before the bench constituting honourable CJI N.V. Ramana, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, and Justice L. Nageswara Rao. The Attorney General of India, K. K. Venugopal submitted that the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal advertised 37 vacancies, and 28 names were recommended by the Supreme Court’s Search-cum-Selection Committee out of which 16 vacancies were being considered for Judicial Member appointments and 6 for Technical Members. Regarding the remaining recommended names, the Government had not cleared their names due to certain information received from IB Reports as well as Medical Reports which were about to be reviewed, at the end of that month and the appointments would be made thereafter. SC stated that difficulties were being faced by parties to proceedings before DRTs and DRATs due to the non-appointment of members and, asked the High Court to deal with cases that fall under the purview of DRTs and DRATs under Article 226 of the Constitution until Tribunals were constituted. SC asked for a reply within 4 weeks.
