courts, which decide matters, are courts in the strictest sense of the term. Neither the court nor the Presiding Officer defends the order before the superior court it does not contest. If the High Court, in exercise of its writ jurisdiction or revisional jurisdiction, as the case may be, calls for the records, the same can always be called for by the High court without the Court or the Presiding Officer being impleaded as a party. Similarly, with the passage of time there have been many a tribunal which only adjudicate and they have nothing to do with the lis. We may cite few examples; the tribunals constituted under the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, the Custom, Excise & Service Tax Appellate Tribunal, the Income Tax Appellate Tribunals, the Sales Tax Tribunal and such others. Every adjudicating authority may be nomenclatured as a tribunal but the said authority(ies) are different that pure and simple adjudicating authorities and that is why they are called the authorities. An Income Tax Commissioner, whatever rank he may be holding, when he adjudicates, he has to be made a party, for he can defend his order. He is entitled to contest. There are many authorities under many a statute. Therefore, the proposition that can safely be culled out is that the authorities or the tribunals, who in law are entitled to defend the orders passed by them, are necessary parties and if they are not arrayed as parties, the writ petition can be treated to be not maintainable or the court may grant liberty to implead them as parties in exercise of its discretion. There are tribunals which are not at all required to defend their own order, and in that case such tribunals need not be arrayed as parties.” The principle that has been culled out in the said case is that a tribunal or authority would only become a necessary party which is entitled in law to defend the order.
