Question

The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 is not applicable in which case?

• A. National Company Law Tribunal
• B. Arbitral Tribunal
• C. Income Tax Appellate Tribunal
• D. National Green Tribunal

Hint:

Whenever you see "Arbitration", think "flexibility". Arbitral tribunals are not bound by the strict rules of evidence that govern ordinary courts.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B

The question is really asking which of these four bodies has a specific statutory licence to depart from strict evidentiary rules, so each option can be checked for whether such a licence exists.

1. NCLT, ITAT and National Green Tribunal: each of these is a statutory tribunal that generally applies established evidentiary principles when deciding the disputes before it; none of them carries a specific statutory exemption from evidence law of the kind the question is looking for.
2. Arbitral Tribunal: the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 specifically states that an arbitral tribunal is not bound by the Code of Civil Procedure or by the strict rules of evidence, which lets it accept material and adopt procedures agreed upon by the parties without being tied to technical rules of proof.

Because this specific statutory exemption exists only for arbitration and not for the three other statutory tribunals listed, the arbitral tribunal is the forum where the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam does not strictly apply.

Answer 2

Grouping the four options into statutory tribunals on one side and arbitration on the other makes the contrast easy to see, since three of the options share a common feature that the fourth deliberately lacks.

1. National Company Law Tribunal, Income Tax Appellate Tribunal and National Green Tribunal, taken together: each of these is created by statute to exercise adjudicatory functions in place of an ordinary civil court, and each generally follows evidentiary principles akin to those a court would apply, even where its own procedural rules give it some latitude.
2. Arbitral Tribunal, by contrast: arbitration is not a statutory replacement for a court in the same sense; it is a private, consensual method of dispute resolution chosen by the parties themselves. To preserve the speed and flexibility that make arbitration attractive, the governing statute specifically frees the arbitral tribunal from the strict rules of evidence that would otherwise apply, a freedom the three tribunals above do not share.

Because the three statutory tribunals sit on the side of forums that generally observe evidentiary principles, while arbitration alone carries an express exemption from those strict rules, the arbitral tribunal is the correct forum where the Adhiniyam does not strictly apply.

Therefore, the correct answer is Arbitral Tribunal.