R. M. Sahai, J. - (1.) TWO of the Advocates, practising in this Court, have assailed validity of Sub-rule (2) of Rule 9 of Central Administrative Tribunal (Procedure Rules), 1987 requiring a gazetted Officer or an Advocate to authenticate the documents which are to accompany an application filed in Form 1 under Rule 4 of the CAT Rules.
(2.) ORIGINALLY the rule required only a gazetted officer to attest the documents. But the rule was amended and amended rule reads as under : "The documents referred to in sub-rule (1) may be attested by a legal practitioner or by a gazetted officer and each document shall be marked serially as Annexures A-1, A-2, A-3 and so on" Attest means to be a witness. By being a witness to the document to be filed the purpose obviously is that an officer or an Advocate shall ascertain its authenticity. That is the rule attempts to ensure that the documents that are filed are genuine. The anxiety of rule making authority to avoid filing of documents which were not correct and were obtained by fraud did not and could not be disputed. What was urged, however, was that the manner provided by rule of ensuring genuineness by entrusting the responsibility to officers and lawyers was not only difficult but impracticable as well. It was urged that the entire purpose of rule would stand frustrated if the responsibility was not fastened on the applicant himself. The learned counsel submitted that it was susceptible to give rise to a class who would not hesitate in authenticating the document without any sense of responsibility thus frustrating the entire purpose of rule. Learned counsel submitted that the original rule was amended as authentication by a gazetted officer created numerous problems. But by addition of advocate it has not been solved Learned counsel urged that normally a person who seeks redress before tribunal is an educated person who can be entrusted with responsibility of filing it on affidavit and that should ensure that the document is genuine. It was argued that even in writ petitions true copy of the document fled on affidavit are accepted. And the tribunal being a substitute of High Court should normally have provided similar procedure. Authenticating a document is a part of procedure. It should be such as to subserve the cause of justice. A rule even though validly framed may be invalid if it is arbitrary or is unreasonable and is inconvenient for carrying the Act into effect or does not serve the purpose for which it was framed. That the rule is apt to cause immense hardship admits of little doubt. It does not achieve the objective of its enactment. Rather filing true copy of a document on affidavit with responsibility on person swearing affidavit may be more effectual and purposeful. Although hardship or unreasonableness of a rule may be a good ground for striking it down but whether in this particular case this rule suffers from any of these infirmities or it can be read down so as to permit the applicant to file which copies of the documents on an affidavit cannot be gone into as it has been pointed out by Senior Standing Counsel for Union of India and rightly that the jurisdiction of this Court under Articles 226 and 227 over the tribunal having been excluded as held in Sampat Kumar v. Union of India, AIR 1987 SC 380, no writ can be issued. Even though the tribunal is situated within territorial jurisdiction of High Court, it is not left with jurisdiction to issue any writ, order or direction to it or against orders passed by it. Vehement submissions were made that in seeking declaration of rule 9 (2) as ultra-vires the petitioners were neither seeking any writ against tribunal nor it related to service matter, therefore, the limited bar created against issuance of declaration under Article 226 did not apply. Answer is two fold, one this Court in exercise of extra ordinary jurisdiction is precluded from rule of self restrain in granting any declaration. And the other that the rule is part of procedure provided for filing of an application in service matters. If this Court cannot issue any writ in service matters it is doubtful if it can indirectly assume jurisdiction and strike down a rule which deals with presentation of petition of service matters. In the result this petition fails and is dismissed. There shall be no order as to costs. Petition dismissed.;