Article 323A is a provision of the Indian Constitution, inserted into a new Part XIV-A titled 'Tribunals' by the 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1976. The provision grants Parliament the power to establish Administrative Tribunals for the adjudication of disputes.
The article was created to solve the problem of massive case backlogs and judicial congestion in the regular courts, particularly the High Courts, which were burdened with service-related litigation from public servants. The aim was to provide a specialized, efficient, and speedy forum for resolving these disputes.
Article 323A(1) specifically empowers Parliament to legislate for the trial of disputes and complaints concerning the recruitment and conditions of service of persons appointed to public services under the Union, any State, local authorities, or government-controlled corporations. Acting on this power, Parliament enacted the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, which led to the establishment of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) and enabled the creation of State Administrative Tribunals (SATs).
A key mechanism of the original provision, Article 323A(2)(d), allowed the law to exclude the jurisdiction of all courts, except the Supreme Court under Article 136, over these service matters. However, this was significantly changed by the Supreme Court's landmark judgment in L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India (1997), which ruled that the power of judicial review of the High Courts under Article 226 and Article 227 is part of the basic structure of the Constitution. Consequently, decisions of the Administrative Tribunals are now subject to scrutiny by a Division Bench of the concerned High Court, before an appeal can be made to the Supreme Court.
Article 323A is closely connected to its companion provision, Article 323B, which allows both Parliament and State Legislatures to establish tribunals for a wider range of other specific matters like taxation and land reforms.