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"(b) 'authority' means an officer or authority or functionary exercising powers or discharging functions as such under a specified Act;".

16. It was contended by the learned counsels that the 'Munsif or the 'District Judge' are not authority under the Act of 1955 or under the Act of 1997, therefore, they cannot be made subordinate to the Tribunal as this will amount to interfering with the judicial power under the Constitution. The State Legislature cannot change the basic structure of the Constitution. Independence of Judiciary is one of the basic structure of the Constitution recognised by the Apex Court and it is the settled principle of law in our country. By this Act the State Legislature has indirectly tried to change the basic structure of the Constitution by bringing the subordinate judiciary under the control of administrative Tribunal constituted under Article 323B of the Constitution. This is not permissible. 'Munsif and 'District Judge' are not persona designata, they are the Courts to whom power of adjudication was entrusted under the Act of 1955. By giving power to the judicial authority to exercise matters relating to revenue will not change their character from a judicial officer to that of a revenue officer. They are appointed under Article 233 of the Constitution and they are not administrative offices so as to become amenable to the jurisdiction of the Tribunal. Section 2(b) of the Act of 1997, as quoted above, only defines 'authority' to mean an officer or authority or functionary exercising powers or discharging functions as such under a specified Act. 'Munsif and 'District Judge' are not officers appointed under the Act of 1955 nor are they authority or functionary exercising power or discharging functions under the Act of 1955, but they are judicial authority adjudicating the rights of the parties under that Act. Therefore, they do not fall in any of the definitions of 'authority' under the Act of 1997 so as to become amenable to the jurisdiction of the Tribunal. Section 6 confers jurisdiction and power on the authority of the Tribunal, it says that the Tribunal shall exercise power in relation to any order made by the authority under the specified Act or an application complaining inaction or culpable negligence of an authority under a specified Act. Therefore, what it contemplates is that any order passed by the authority under the specified Act, means a functionary like the revenue authority appointed under the Act of 1955 whose order shall be subject to the, jurisdiction of the Tribunal. The idea behind this is that all the orders which are passed by the revenue authority shall be subject to the decision of the Tribunal. But as mentioned above, 'Munsif or the 'District Judge' are not authority under the Act of 1955. Revenue Officers who are appointed under the Act of 1955 and discharging functions under that Act, against their order the Tribunal shall exercise its jurisdiction. Section 2(4) of the Act of 1955 defines 'Collector', as "collector means the Collector of a District or any other office appointed by the State Government to discharge any of the functions of a Collector under this Act" meaning thereby that one of the functionaries under the Act of 1955 is the 'Collector' and he is to be appointed by the State Government and various powers which has been conferred under the Act of 1955 are to be discharged by the Collector. Similarly, in Section 2(12) of the Act of 1955 defines 'Revenue Officer', which reads as follows: