A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and KV Vishwanathan said the problems faced by tribunals “need to be addressed on a war footing, otherwise the very object and purpose of implementing the IBC will be defeated”. It said NCLTs play an important role in the economy, as they try to keep companies that are “going into trouble due to various factors and keep them afloat”, but the situation prevailing in these tribunals is serious and depressing.In its order, the court noted that most of the tribunal’s staff, including the post of Registrar, are appointed on a temporary basis and the entire staff of NCLT, Mumbai had once gone on strike as salaries were not paid on time.The Supreme Court said that “as per the report forwarded by the Registrar of NCLT, the Principal Bench, 363 applications (resolution proposals) are awaiting approval”.“As clarifications have been sought, the delay ranges from 48 days to 738 days. In some cases, the delay is up to four years. The reasons cited are mainly lack of adequate infrastructure and lack of infrastructure resulting in half-day sitting of the benches, especially due to exchange of combinations and pendency of large number of objections on the resolution plan filed by various stakeholders.”The statutory sanctioned strength for all NCLT benches is 63 members – including a Chairperson and 31 judicial members and the same number of technical members. At present, only 28 judicial members and 26 technical members are posted on all the benches.