STATUTORY BODIES

 National Commission for Women:

 Chairperson + 5 members + 1 member-secretary, all nominated by the
Ministry of Women and Child Development
 All appointed for 3 years
 It can also include other members, but they don’t have voting rights
 While investigating matters, the commission has all the powers of a civil
court trying a suit

Failures
 It was born out of successive women’s movements demanding a
representational conduit between itself and the state
 Various women’s organizations have been complaining against the
commission over the fact that it has been ignored by the government on
policy issues and over the ad hoc manner in which the women's groups
have generally been asked be part of any consultative process
 The Commission lacks autonomy and in the performance of its role has
been restricted by its institutional design. The NCW Act does not lay down
any minimum requirement for members and has not stipulated a
procedure of selecting the members with the result that the selection
process is in total control of the party in power
 Rather than acting with an independent mandate and as a buffer between
the citizens and the state, the commission has largely acted as a
department of MWCD
 The recommendations of the commission are hardly ever listened to

Successes
 However, some women’s organizations have been able to gain minimal
concessions from the commission in isolated cases (such as issues of
female construction workers, women in prostitution, mahila sarpanches
etc.) thus showing that though tough, there is a possibility of the
commission being used judiciously
 The commission has also produced good reports on occasion (such as on
child prostitution, status of muslim women etc.)

 National Human Rights Commission:

 ‘Human Rights’ mean the rights relating to life, liberty, equality and
dignity of the individual, that everyone is entitled to enjoy freely
regardless of their birth, caste, creed, religion, sex, nationality etc. 
 Human rights are not static, but evolve over time

Composition
 Chairman (an ex-CJI) + 8 members (a present or ex judge of SC, a present
or ex CJ of an HC, 4 ex-officio members who are chairpersons of National
Commission (of minorities, SC, ST, Women), 2 with experience in human
rights)
  Appointed by (6): PM + Home Minister + Leaders of Opposition in LS
and RS + Lok Sabha speaker + Deputy Chairman of RS
 Formed as per the ‘Paris Principles’, which provide that such an
institution should provide a broad mandate, representative composition,
wide accessibility, effectiveness

Successes
 Succeeded in persuading the central government to sign the UN
Convention against Torture
 Number of complaints received has been rising over the years, showing
greater awareness

Failures
 However, about 60% of the cases come from just 4 states, indicating that
not many people know about the charter of the commission
 Number of pending cases has also been rising sharply
 The commission is completely dependent on the government for
manpower and finances
 Cannot investigate any actions of the armed forces
 Cannot enforce it’s own findings

 National Commission for Protection of Child Rights:

 Mandate is to ensure that all laws, policies, programmes, and
administrative mechanisms are in line with child rights enshrined in
Indian constitution and in the UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child(anyone upto 18 years of age)
 Chairperson + 6 members (at least 2 of whom are women)
 Appointed by a 3-person committee under the Minister in-charge of
DWCD

 National Commission for Backward Classes:

 Chairperson (judge of SC or HC) + 4 members (one social scientist, two
knowledgeable about BCs, one Secretary to Government of India)
 The commission considers inclusions in and exclusions from the lists
of communities notified as backward for the purpose of job
reservations, and relays its recommendations to the government
 The government has the power to reject the recommendations
 Has the same powers as a civil court

 National Commission for Minorities

 Set up to look in to affairs related to Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists,
Zoroastrians, and Jains
 Composed of Chairperson + Vice Chairperson + 5 members; all are
nominated by the central government, but must be from the
minority communities
 Has all the powers of a civil court
 Presents an annual report to the government that has to be tabled in front
of both houses of parliament
 Delimitation Commission
 It’s a statutory body, not a constitutional one
 All orders issued by it are beyond legal scrutiny
 Composition: Present or ex judge of SC, Chief Election Commissioner,
State Election Commissioner

 Central Board for Film Certification

 This is a censorship and classification body under Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting
 It assigns certifications to films, television shows, television ads, and
publications for exhibition, sale or hire in India
 The Board consist of non-official members and a Chairperson (all of
whom are appointed by Central Government)
 Grants 4 kinds of certificates to films:
 U –unrestricted exhibition
 UA- unrestricted exhibition, with a word of caution to parents that
some content might not be appropriate for children below 12 years of
age
 A- adults only
 S- restricted to special class of persons

 UGC and AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education):

 AICTE is the statutory body and a national-level council for technical
education, under Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human
Resource Development
 Responsible for proper planning and coordinated development of
the technical education and management education system in India
 The AICTE accredits postgraduate and graduate programs under specific
categories at Indian institutions as per its charter
 Main difference between UGC and AICTE is that the latter deals only with
technical education
 UGC, it is the apex body that approves universities in the country. UGC
provide funds for affiliated universities and colleges, and also conducts
exams, known as NET, for appointing teachers in colleges
 The AICTE is only a statutory body, which deals with coordinated
development and proper planning of the technical education system in the
country. All the Engineering, MBA and Pharmacy colleges are affiliated with
the All India Council for Technical Education
 UGC’s prime function is to look into the financial needs of universities. It
then allocates and disburses grants to these universities. Other academic
functions come only after these functions
 On the other hand, the AICTE act gives priority to undertaking surveys in
various fields of technical education at all levels. Fund allocation and
disbursement comes second to this
 In its 25 April 2013 judgment the Honorable Supreme Court said "as per
provisions of the AICTE Act and University Grants Commission (UGC) Act,
the council has no authority which empowers it to issue or enforce any
 sanctions on colleges affiliated with the universities as its role is to provide
guidance and recommendations”
 This means that AICTE is now merely an advisory body; UGC does all the
regulatory work, and all technical institutes will need to align themselves
with a university

 National Disaster Management Authority:

 Under Ministry of Home Affairs
 Primary purpose is to coordinate response to natural or man-made
disasters and for capacity-building in disaster resiliency and crisis
response
 The Prime Minister is the de-facto chairperson of NDMA
 A 9-member board chaired by the Prime Minister of India governs the
NDMA. The remainder of the board consists of members nominated based
on their expertise in areas such as policy, planning, infrastructure
management, communications, meteorology and natural sciences
 Heads NDRF, whichconsists of ten battalions of Central Armed Police
Forces, including three each of the BSF, CRPF, and two each of
the CISF and ITBP

 National Green Tribunal:

 National Green Tribunal was established in 2010
by an Act of the Parliament of India 
 It handles fast disposal of cases pertaining to
environmental issues
 It was enacted under India's constitutional provision
of Article 21, which assures the citizens of India the
right to a healthy environment
 The Tribunal has Original Jurisdiction on matters of “substantial question
relating to environment” (i.e. a community at large is affected, damage to
public health at broader level) & “damage to environment due to specific
activity” (such as pollution). It aims to move beyond simply
anthropometric concerns
 The sanctioned strength of the tribunal is currently 10 expert members
and 10 judicial members although the act allows for up to 20 of each
 The Chairman of the tribunal is required to be a serving or retired Chief
Justice of a High Court or a judge of the Supreme Court of India. Members
are chosen by a selection committee (headed by a sitting judge of the
Supreme Court of India) that reviews their applications and conducts
interviews. The Judicial members are chosen from applicants who are
serving or retired judges of High Courts. Expert members are chosen from
applicants who are either serving or retired bureaucrats not below the
rank of an Additional Secretary to the Government of India

 Given the high rates of backlog in Indian courts, a tribunal like this one
can go a long way in improving the situation of disposal of environmental
cases
 NGT, since it’s inception, has shown a disposal rate of about 60%, which is
significantly higher than overall judicial disposal rates; still, in absolution,
the pendency remains high, showing manpower constraints
 Also, since the NGT is located in only five big cities across India, and has
now taken the powers of lower courts, access to people from remote
areas (especially tribals) is now constrained
 There have been some protests from the Ministry of Environment that the
NGT has been overstepping its brief; it is not clear whether the NGT has
suo moto powers, whether it can review and direct changes in rules and
regulations (power of judicial review); thus, there is condierable friction
between the NGT and the MoE

 Central Information Commission:

 CIC was set up under the RTI Act of 2005
 Aims to provide redressal mechanism for the
citizens who have not been able to submit
information requests to a Central/ State Public
Information Officer due to such a person not being
appointed, or refusing to accept the query
 Includes one Chief Information Commissioner and
up to 10 Information Commissioners, all appointed
by the President
 The nomination committee includes PM, LoP in Lok
Sabha, and one Union Cabinet Minister nominated by
the President (so essentially the PM has two votes)
(for states, CM, LoP in Vidhan Sabha, plus one Cabinet
Minister appointed by CM)
 5 year terms, no reappointment, retirement at 65
 MPs/ MLAs cannot be CICs

 Central Vigilance Commission:

 Set up to address government corruption
 Is a statutory body
 Composed of one CVC plus two Vigilance Commissioners
 Appointments are made by the PM, A cabinet minister nominated by the
PM, and the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha
 It has the status of an autonomous body, free of control from any
executive authority, charged with monitoring all vigilance activity under
the Central Government of India
 Weaknesses:
 Its jurisdiction extends only over officers of All India Services, and not
over the judiciary and the executive
 It is not an investigative body itself, but recommends investigation by CBI,
Departmental Chief Vigilance Officers etc.
 CVC is only an advisory body. Central Government Departments are free
to either accept or reject CVC's advice in corruption cases
 CVC does not have adequate resources compared with number of
complaints that it receives. It is a very small set up with a sanctioned staff
 strength of 299, and it is supposed to check corruption in more than 1500
central government departments and ministries
 CVC cannot direct CBI to initiate inquiries against any officer of the level
of Joint Secretary and above on its own. Such permission has to be
obtained from the concerned department
 CVC does not have powers to register criminal case. It deals only with
vigilance or disciplinary cases
 CVC has supervisory powers over CBI. However, CVC does not have the
power to call for any file from CBI or to direct CBI to investigate any case
in a particular manner
 Appointments to CVC are indirectly under the control of Government of
India, though the leader of the Opposition (in Lok Sabha) is a member of
the Committee to select CVC and VCs. But the Committee considers
candidates put up before it. These candidates are decided by the
Government

 Directorate of Revenue Intelligence: The Directorate of Revenue

Intelligence was constituted on 4th December 1957, for dealing
exclusively with the work relating to the collection and study of
information on smuggling activities and the deployment of all anti-
smuggling resources at the all India level. It functions under the Central
Board of Excise and Customs in the Ministry of Finance, Department
of Revenue

Anti-dumping duty is levied on distrustfully low-priced imports, so as to protect

the domestic manufacturers. Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) issued a
show-cause cum demand notice to telecom major Vodafone and its two
subsidiaries for evading this anti0dumping duty of around Rs. 330 crores.

REGULATORY BODIES- FINANCE

The Indian discussion on the role and function of government agencies in

financial regulation needs to be accompanied by a treatment of the difficulties of
high quality agencies. While Indian policy makers have one important success in
SEBI, which has emerged as a relatively high quality agency, Indian policy
makers need to diagnose and the sources of problems at the other four agencies
in finance (RBI, FMC, IRDA and PFRDA). The difficulties of IRDA and PFRDA
serve as a reminder that even when an agency starts with a clean slate, without
institutional baggage from a pre-reforms India, without conflicts of interest and
archaic legal foundations, there is still a substantial risk of failure in institution
building
1. Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI):
 Securities include debt, equity, and derivatives such as forwards,
futures, options, stocks etc.
 SEBI regulates the securities market in India
 It is now a statutory body
  Composition: Chairman (nominated by Union government), 2 officers
from Finance Ministry, 1 from RBI, 5 other members nominated by
Union government
 It performs all 3 functions (quasi), legislative (drafts regulations),
executive (investigates and enforces rules), and judicial (passes
rulings), in matters related to securities
 To appeal its rulings, there exists a Securities Appellate Tribunal;
second appeal lies directly to the SC (important- Rajan recently said
that we don’t want an appellate raj)

2. Forward Markets Commission (FMC):

 Chief regulator of commodities forwards markets in India; allows
commodity exchange in 22 exchanges across India, of which 6 are
national
 It is now going to be merged with SEBI, since commodity trading has
increasingly become a financial trading activity
 Commodity markets need to be regulated as trading in commodities
leads to speculation, which can lead to spiraling food price inflation
 It allows futures trading in 23 Fibres and Manufacturers, 15 spices, 44
edible oils, 6 pulses, 4 energy products, single vegetable, 20 metal
futures, 33 others Futures
 The efforts to check harmful/ illegal commodities futures trading are
likely to get a major boost with SEBI being given the jurisdiction to
regulate commodity markets as well following FMC merger, as SEBI
already enjoys greater powers including those to conduct search and
seizure, impose penalties, order arrests and take other strict actions
against wrongdoers
 Merger promotes better coordination, and is in line with FSLRC
recommendation
 Could lead to better trust, and hence entry of strong institutional
investors in the commodities space
 The merger of SEBI and FMC means that all organised financial trading,
government bonds, and commodities futures will be under the SEBI’s
jurisdiction. This leaves the RBI with an odd collection of elements:
corporate bonds with maturity below one year, credit derivatives,
and currencies and their derivatives. It would have been much
cleaner to do the full thing, instead of settling for such an
awkward compromise.

3. Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA):

 Promotes old age income security by establishing, developing and
regulating pension funds and protects the interests of subscribers
to schemes of pension funds and related matters
 Chairman + max. 5 members, all appointed by Union government
 PFRDA faced a difficulty akin to SEBI’s early years in that its
legislation has been delayed. At the same time, SEBI started
chalking up important achievements in the 1988-1992 period. In
addition, PFRDA has a strong contractual role in the NPS, which
gives it regulatory powers through enforcement of contracts. Yet,
 in its first seven years, PFRDA has failed to emerge as a strong
organization

4. Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA):

 Autonomous apex statutory body which regulates and develops
the insurance industry in India
 In an unusual decision, IRDA was placed in Hyderabad, which led to an
increased distance from the knowledge and staff quality of Bombay. While
IRDA was relatively cutoff from the main Indian discourse on financial
policy and regulation, which takes place in Bombay and Delhi, insurance
companies had a strong incentive to engage with IRDA. With focused
lobbying by insurance companies acting upon relatively weak staff
quality, and the lack of the context of the financial discourse of Bombay,
IRDA came to increasingly share the world-view of insurance companies
 Through this, IRDA came to increasingly support questionable sales
practices and tax subsidies for fund management by insurance companies.
The establishment of IRDA, thus, must be chalked up as a failure of
institution building

Regulators in areas other than finance

 Competition Commission of India: Not statutory; all members

nominated by the central government; notable cases include BCCI v/s
IPL franchises (2013), DLF limited etc.

 Atomic Energy Regulatory Board:

 Carries out regulatory functions to ensure that the use of ionizing
radiation and nuclear energy in India does not cause undue risk to
health and environment in India
 Has constituted a number of advisory committees that deal with
nuclear safety, industrial and fire safety, and occupational health
 During a recent visit by an IAEA team, they made recommendations
saying that AERB should be given more powers