The Great Indian Commissions and What Became of Their Reports

How long. It was originally required to report within three months. Extensions were granted, on the published accounts, forty-eight times. It submitted its report to the Prime Minister on 30 June 2009, seventeen years after appointment.

What became of it. The report and the action taken report were laid before Parliament in November 2009, which is section 3(4)'s requirement performed seventeen years after the inquiry began.

What the example teaches, and it is the case for reform in one set of figures.

A three month mandate became seventeen years, by extension. Section 3(1) requires the notification to specify the time within which the Commission is to report, and nothing in the Act limits the number of extensions.

Seventeen years destroys the purpose. Chapter 350 took the purpose from State of Karnataka v. Union of India: to restore public confidence where rumours cause a crisis of confidence. A finding delivered seventeen years later, about events on which opinion has long hardened, cannot do that whichever way it goes.

Evidence decays. Witnesses die, memories fail, documents are lost. An inquiry that lasts seventeen years is inquiring into a different evidentiary world from the one it was appointed to examine.

And section 3(4) was complied with. The report was laid, with a memorandum. The Act's own accountability requirement was satisfied. That is precisely the point: the Act's requirements can be met and the institution can still have failed.

The pattern, stated as an argument

Put the two together and three propositions emerge that an answer can defend.

One: the Act constrains the end and not the middle. Section 3(1) requires a time to be specified and section 3(4) requires the report to be laid within six months of submission. Between those two points there is no statutory discipline: no limit on extensions, no reporting on progress, no consequence for delay.

Two: findings are the easy part and consequences are the hard part. Both Commissions found facts. What happened next depended on the political will of a Government, in one case prodded by the Supreme Court a decade later.

Three: the institution is not a failure, and saying so is not a defence of it. The Srikrishna Commission established what happened in Bombay in 1992 and 1993 in a way that no other process had, and its record exists. Chapter 350's test, that confidence is restored whichever way the facts turn out, is met by a report that establishes the facts. Whether anyone was punished is a different question, and chapter 520 explained why the answer is usually no.

A worked example: the comparison an examiner wants

What beginners get wrong

That a Commission's findings were never acted on. The State's own affidavit in the Srikrishna matter reported 2,267 cases registered. What is contested is the adequacy and the outcome, not the existence, of action.

That delay is a failure of the individual Commission. The Act permits unlimited extensions and provides no discipline. Chapter 540 sets that out.

That a long inquiry is a thorough one. The Srikrishna Commission examined 502 witnesses in about five years. Length and thoroughness are different variables.

And that naming names is the same as recommending punishment. Chapter 480 established that a Commission may find that a named person did something and may not recommend redress or punishment for a past wrong.

Quick revision

Srikrishna Commission: Government of Maharashtra, Justice B.N. Srikrishna, riots of December 1992 and January 1993; report 16 February 1998; reported 502 witnesses, 2,903 exhibits; indicted politicians and 31 policemen; recommended chargesheets in 436 cases; Supreme Court directed an affidavit on implementation in August 2007; State reported 2,267 cases registered.

Liberhan Commission: Central Government, Justice M.S. Liberhan, appointed 16 December 1992, ten days after the demolition; three month original mandate; 48 extensions reported; report submitted 30 June 2009, seventeen years later; laid before Parliament with an action taken report in November 2009.

Three propositions: the Act constrains the end and not the middle; findings are easy and consequences are hard; and the institution is not a failure measured against its own purpose of establishing facts.

Test yourself

1. What do the Srikrishna and Liberhan Commissions together show about the working of the Act? That the Act disciplines the beginning and the end of an inquiry and not the middle. Section 3(1) requires the notification to specify a time and section 3(4) requires the report to be laid within six months of submission, but nothing limits the number of extensions, requires progress to be reported or attaches a consequence to delay: the Liberhan Commission's three month mandate became seventeen years with a reported forty-eight extensions. They also show that findings are the easier half and consequences the harder: both Commissions found facts and named individuals, and in the Srikrishna matter implementation had to be pressed by the Supreme Court a decade after the report.

2. Why does a seventeen year inquiry defeat the purpose of the institution? Because the purpose, as stated in State of Karnataka v. Union of India, is to restore public confidence where allegations and rumours have caused a crisis of confidence, by thoroughly probing them, confidence being restored whichever way the facts turn out. A finding delivered seventeen years later cannot do that: opinion has hardened, the political situation has changed, and the evidence itself has decayed as witnesses die and documents are lost.

3. Does the Srikrishna example show that Commission reports are never implemented? No. The State's affidavit filed in January 2008, after the Supreme Court directed one in August 2007, reported that 2,267 cases had been registered. What the example shows is that implementation depends on political will and, in that instance, on judicial pressure applied years afterwards, rather than on any mechanism in the Act itself.

4. Why is this chapter sourced differently from the rest of the book, and what follows? Because the reports of these Commissions are not among the primary materials in the book's authority base, so the dates and figures are given as reported in published accounts checked in the session of 23 August 2026, rather than read off a primary record as every section and every case in this book has been. What follows is that the figures should be used in an answer as reported figures, and that the propositions built on them, about extensions, delay and the gap between finding and consequence, do not depend on any single figure being exact.