How to Find Out If Your Organisation Is Notified Under Section 14(2)

What Section 14(2) actually does

Section 14(1) of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 gives the Central Administrative Tribunal the service and recruitment disputes of people who work directly for the Union. Section 14(2) lets the Central Government extend that jurisdiction, by notification, to local and other authorities within India or under its control, and to corporations and societies owned or controlled by it. Section 14(3) then says that from the notified date, the tribunal hears the recruitment and service matters of people appointed to posts in that body.

Two limits are built in. The power covers only bodies owned or controlled by the Centre; a society or corporation controlled by a state government is left out of Section 14(2), and a state can bring its own bodies under a state tribunal through Section 15. And nothing happens automatically. A body may be set up by a ministry, funded entirely by it and run by its officers, and still not be under the tribunal until a notification names it.

The practical result is that the question of autonomous body CAT jurisdiction is a question of paper, not of logic. Your institute may look exactly like one that is notified. That does not matter. What matters is whether your organisation's name appears in the Schedule, and from what date.

Section 14(2) notified organisations: one master list, many amendments

The Department of Personnel and Training issued a master notification on 2 May 1986, published as G.S.R. 730(E), with a Schedule listing the first bodies brought under the tribunal. Since then, each new addition has been made by a further notification that amends that Schedule and adds entries with fresh serial numbers. So the list of Section 14(2) notified organisations is really the 1986 Schedule as amended up to today.

Two recent amendments show how this works. A notification of 2 August 2024 added ten bodies from Jammu and Kashmir, including the University of Kashmir, the University of Jammu and the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, at serial numbers 220 to 229. A notification of 13 January 2026, S.O. 186(E), added sixteen newer AIIMS, from Awantipora to Rewari and Raebareli, at serial numbers 232 to 247.

When you find an amendment, read it closely. Each entry gives a serial number, the name of the body and, in the recent ones, its nature in brackets, such as 'autonomous body' or 'statutory body'. The opening paragraph states the date from which Section 14(3) applies to the new entries. Note all three details. If your lawyer later writes 'the respondent institute is notified at serial no. 233 of the Schedule with effect from 13 January 2026', the registry has nothing left to query.

The AIIMS amendment carries a useful lesson. Each institute had to be named separately. Being an AIIMS, or a body like others already on the list, did not bring any of them under the tribunal until that notification. Two months later, the Allahabad High Court sent a challenge to an AIIMS Raebareli recruitment to the tribunal, noting that the institute was now notified.

Well-known bodies whose staff regularly appear before the tribunal include the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti, CSIR and ICAR. For others, do not rely on reputation. Check.

How to check, step by step

Do these in order. Most people have an answer by the second or third step.

1. Write down every name your organisation has had

   Note the present name, any earlier names, the name of the parent society or council, and the registration number if it is a society. Bodies get renamed, merged and split, and the Schedule may still show an old name.

2. Ask your establishment or legal section

   Write a short note asking for a copy of the Section 14(2) notification that applies to your organisation, if any. Legal cells often keep it because they deal with tribunal cases. A copy from your own office is also useful later as evidence.

3. Search the e-Gazette

   On the official e-Gazette site, search the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions notifications for 'Administrative Tribunals Act' and your organisation's names. Recent notifications are searchable; very old ones may be scanned images that do not show in text search.

4. Check DoPT's website and circulars archive

   DoPT has posted several of these notifications as PDFs, including the 2024 Jammu and Kashmir amendment. Our guide on where to find DoPT, DoE and DoPPW orders online explains how to search those archives.

5. Look for tribunal orders involving your organisation

   Search published tribunal judgments for your organisation's name. If the tribunal has decided colleagues' cases on merits, with your organisation as a respondent, a notification almost certainly exists, and the order may even cite it.

6. File an RTI if the trail runs cold

   Ask DoPT, or your administrative ministry, whether your organisation has been notified under Section 14(2) and for a copy of the notification with its date. Ask the same question of your own organisation's public information officer.

Once you have the notification, check two things: that the name matches your employer, and the date from which it applies. Keep a clean copy; it will go into your OA as an annexure.

Where to look, what you get and how long it takes

Wording an RTI request so the answer is useful

RTI replies on this subject are often unhelpful because the question was too broad. 'Please tell me whether CAT has jurisdiction over my institute' invites a reply that the public information officer cannot give legal opinions. Ask instead for a record: 'Please provide a copy of the notification, if any, issued under Section 14(2) of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 in respect of [full name, with former names], with its number and date of publication in the Gazette.'

Send that request to DoPT, which issues these notifications, and a second one to your own organisation's public information officer. If your organisation is a lab or centre of a larger body, add a third question: whether your unit is part of the same registered society or separately registered. The answers together usually settle the matter.

If the reply says 'no such information is available', that is itself useful: it suggests no notification has been issued. Keep it. If the reply is evasive or late, the first appeal lies to the appellate authority named in the reply, generally within 30 days. Do not let the RTI process hold up a case that is close to the one-year limit; your lawyer can file with the best material available and explain the position on jurisdiction in the application.

When the name on the list does not match your employer

Mismatched names cause more confusion than missing notifications. A council renamed after a merger, an institute that was earlier a project of another society, a board that became a statutory authority under a new Act: each may appear in the Schedule under a name nobody in the office uses any more.

The test is whether the notified body and your employer are the same legal entity. A society that changes its name under the Societies Registration Act remains the same society, so an old notification usually still applies. A new statutory body created by an Act, which takes over the staff of an old society, is a new entity; the old notification may not carry over, and a fresh one may be needed.

For labs, institutes and regional centres that are part of a larger notified society, the parent's notification normally covers them, because the staff are employees of the society. CSIR's laboratories are the usual example. But a separately registered society that merely receives grants from the parent is a different employer, and the parent's notification does not cover it.

When there is a mismatch, collect the documents that link the names: the renaming resolution, the society registration certificate showing the change, the Act or government order that transferred staff, and any later office order that refers to the notification.

Why the date in the notification matters

Each notification says from which date Section 14(3) applies. The tribunal's jurisdiction over that body starts on that date and not before. Notifications are prospective in this sense: they do not reopen cases already decided by the High Court.

Cases already pending in a court when a body is notified are handled by Section 29, which provides for them to move to the tribunal. That is why staff of newly notified bodies sometimes see their writ petitions transferred and renumbered as TAs.

If your grievance arose before the notification but you have not yet filed, the tribunal is now the forum. Limitation still matters: the one-year rule in Section 21 is counted from the final order, and an old grievance will need a convincing explanation for the delay, whatever the forum.

What a notification changes, and what it does not

A notification changes the forum and nothing else. It does not turn you into a government servant. Staff of a notified society remain employees of that society, governed by its bye-laws, recruitment rules and service rules, even though their cases are now heard by the same tribunal that hears a clerk in a ministry.

This matters when you plan the case. Article 311 of the Constitution, with its protection against dismissal without inquiry, applies to persons holding civil posts under the Union; employees of autonomous bodies get similar protection through their own rules and the principles of natural justice, not through Article 311 directly. Likewise, the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 apply to you only if your body has adopted them. Many institutes adopted the CCS rules wholesale; others adopted them 'mutatis mutandis' with their own changes, or run a contributory provident fund scheme instead.

So the tribunal will test the order against your organisation's rules. When you collect papers, get the version of the bye-laws and service rules that was in force on the date of the order you are challenging, not just the current one. Governing body resolutions that adopt or amend central rules are often the most important documents in the whole file, and they are rarely given to employees unless asked for.

If your organisation is not notified

If no notification exists, the tribunal cannot hear you, however closely your work resembles government work. The next question is whether your employer is 'State' under Article 12 of the Constitution. Since Pradeep Kumar Biswas v. Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (2002), courts ask whether the government has deep and pervasive financial, functional and administrative control over the body. Most centrally funded societies and statutory bodies pass this test, and their staff can file a writ under Article 226 in the High Court.

This is the route for staff of most central universities, many institutes and several statutory boards. Our pages on central university teachers and staff and on employees who go directly to the High Court explain that route.

Writ petitions have their own discipline. A High Court expects you to have used any appeal provided in your organisation's rules first, and it will not usually take evidence on disputed facts. Delay also counts against you even though no fixed limitation period applies to writs; a petition filed years after the order needs a good explanation, much as an OA would.

If the body is not 'State', for example a private trust that only receives a grant, the High Court will usually decline a writ over a routine job dispute. The remedy is then a civil suit, or the industrial route if you are a 'worker' under the Industrial Relations Code, 2020.

Employees sometimes ask whether they can make the government notify their organisation. You can represent to your administrative ministry and to DoPT. It is a policy decision, though, and courts rarely direct the government to issue a notification, so do not hold back a live case while you wait for one.

Statutory body, society or company: does the form matter?

Section 14(2) can reach all three forms. A statutory body set up by an Act, a society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 and a company owned by the Centre can each be notified. In practice, most notified bodies are societies and statutory authorities; central public sector companies have generally not been notified, and their staff go to the High Court.

The form matters more for the Article 12 question if there is no notification. A statutory body created by a central Act is almost always 'State'. A society needs the control test. A company may or may not pass it, depending on shareholding and control.

The form also decides who your appointing and disciplinary authorities are. In a notified society, these come from the society's own bye-laws and service rules, which often adopt the CCS rules with changes. Read the bye-laws, because they decide whether the order you want to challenge was passed by the right authority, whatever the forum. For the wider differences in rights, see our guide on government servants and employees of autonomous bodies.

Common mistakes in checking a notification

• Relying on a colleague's memory. 'Our people have always gone to CAT' may be true, or may be about a sister organisation. Ask to see the paper.
• Assuming funding equals jurisdiction. Grants from a ministry, a Secretary as chairperson or government rules adopted in the bye-laws do not bring a body under the tribunal.
• Looking only under the current name. Search old names and the parent society's name too.
• Ignoring the date. A notification issued after your writ was filed affects where the case continues, under Section 29, not whether it was properly filed.
• Forgetting deputation. If you are a central employee on deputation and the order came from your parent department, the tribunal may hear you even if the borrowing body is not notified. Our guide on which department to sue while on deputation covers this.
• Not annexing the notification. Registries and benches ask how the tribunal has jurisdiction. A copy annexed to the OA answers that at the start.

Papers to collect for the jurisdiction question

• Copy of the Section 14(2) notification, or the gazette page that names your organisation, with its date.
• Memorandum of association, bye-laws or the Act that created your organisation.
• Society registration certificate, and any certificate recording a change of name.
• Your appointment letter, showing which body appointed you.
• Service rules that apply to you, and any order adopting the CCS rules.
• Any government order merging, renaming or transferring staff between bodies.
• One or two earlier tribunal or High Court orders in cases of your colleagues.
• Your RTI application and reply, if you used RTI.

How this differs for candidates, retirees and contract staff

Candidates rejected in a recruitment by a notified body can go to the tribunal, because Section 14(3) covers recruitment matters for posts in that body. For a body notified recently, check the date: a recruitment advertised before the notification but decided after it can raise arguments about forum, and it is safer to set out the dates clearly in the application.

Retired employees of a notified body bring their pension and retirement benefit disputes before the tribunal, because pension is a service matter. Families claiming family pension stand in the same place. Where a pension scheme is run by a separate trust or fund rather than the body itself, read who actually passed the order you dispute.

Staff engaged directly by a notified body on contract are in a less settled position. Where they hold a post or engagement 'in connection with the affairs' of the body, the tribunal may hear them; workers supplied by an outside agency usually cannot use the tribunal, since the agency, not the body, is their employer in law. Their remedies generally lie under labour law.

Advocate B.K. Singh on proving the notification

Advocate B.K. Singh does not accept 'our cases go to CAT' as an answer, however many colleagues say it. Before drafting an OA for anyone working in an autonomous body, he asks for the gazette notification itself, or a tribunal order that cites it, and checks the serial number and date against the client's appointment letter. It is a short exercise, and it prevents the most avoidable dismissal in service law.

His second tip is about presentation. Where the organisation's name has changed, or the client works in a lab or centre of a larger society, he puts a short jurisdiction paragraph near the start of the OA explaining the link, with the renaming or registration papers annexed. A registry that can see the answer on page three is far less likely to raise an objection that costs weeks.

What to do this week

Write down every name your organisation has had, ask your establishment section in writing for the notification, and search the e-Gazette and DoPT's site. If you find it, keep a clean copy and read our page on taking a service case to the Central Administrative Tribunal. If your body is the ESIC or EPFO, see the page on checking the notification before filing for ESIC and EPFO staff, and if you teach in a Kendriya or Navodaya Vidyalaya, the page on KVS and NVS teachers applies. The wider picture of every forum is in our forum map for central employees.

If you have found the notification but are unsure whether it fits your employer, or found nothing at all, a CAT lawyer can usually settle the question from your appointment letter and the body's founding papers.

For advice on whether your organisation is covered, or for updates when new notifications are issued, you can contact Advocate B.K. Singh.