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Test for Ouster Of Civil Court Jurisdiction By Specially Constituted Tribunals

CIVIL APPEAL NO. 8069 OF 2019, (Arising out of SLP (C) No.11852 of 2019), M. Hariharasudhan  vs R. Karmegam and Ors., while dealing with the question of ouster of the jurisdiction of the civil court by specially constituted tribunals in an Act, the Supreme Court concluded that such ouster was not to be readily inferred unless the conditions set out by the  Court were satisfied. For the purposes of determining the question before us, we need only refer to the following conditions laid down by this Court in Dhulabhai v. State of Madhya Pradesh, 1968 (3) SCR 662 :-

(1) Where the statute gives a finality to the orders of the special Tribunals the civil courts’ jurisdiction must be held to be excluded if there is adequate remedy to do what the civil courts would normally do in a suit. Such provision, however, does not exclude those cases where the provisions of the particular Act have not been complied with or the statutory Tribunal has not acted in conformity with the fundamental principles of judicial procedure. 

(2) Where there is an express bar of the jurisdiction of the court, an examination of the scheme of the
particular Act to find the adequacy or the sufficiency of the remedies provided may be relevant but is not decisive to sustain the jurisdiction of the civil court.
Where there is no express exclusion the examination of the remedies and the scheme of the particular Act to find out the intendment becomes necessary and the result of the inquiry may be decisive. In the latter case it is necessary to see if the statute creates a special right or a liability and provides for the determination of the right or liability and further lays down that all questions about the said right and liability shall be determined by the Tribunals so constituted, and whether remedies normally associated with actions in civil courts are prescribed by the said statute or not.
x x x

(7) An exclusion of the jurisdiction of the civil court is not readily to be inferred unless the conditions above set down apply.

Thus the court must determine whether the Act provides an adequate final remedy to what the civil court would normally do in a suit, such that the jurisdiction of the civil court must necessarily be inferred to have been ousted. The scheme of the Act and Rules must be examined in this light.

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