Commissions of Inquiry Into Agrarian Violence

In one line

A commission of inquiry finds facts and decides nothing, and in the agrarian episodes of this module the commonest fact about a commission is that none was appointed.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the Commissions of Inquiry Act 1952 empowers the appropriate Government, by section 3, to appoint a Commission of Inquiry into any definite matter of public importance, and obliges it to do so if a resolution to that effect is passed by the legislature; the Commission has, by section 4, the powers of a civil court to summon and enforce attendance, examine on oath, require the discovery and production of documents, receive evidence on affidavits and requisition public records; by section 6 a statement made to it may not, save for a prosecution for giving false evidence, subject the maker to civil or criminal proceedings; by section 8B a person whose conduct it proposes to inquire into, or whose reputation is likely to be prejudicially affected, must be given a reasonable opportunity to be heard; and by section 3(4) the report, together with a memorandum of the action taken, must be laid before the legislature within six months.

What a commission is, and what it is not

Ram Krishna Dalmia v. Justice S.R. Tendolkar, AIR 1958 SC 538, 1959 SCR 279, decided on 28 March 1958.

Facts. The Central Government appointed a Commission of Inquiry under the 1952 Act to inquire into the administration of a group of companies and firms. The appointment and the Act were challenged on the grounds that the Act delegated excessive power, that the notification singled out named persons and offended article 14, and that the inquiry would prejudice those named.

Held. The Act was upheld. A Commission of Inquiry is a fact-finding body appointed to collect material for the Government to act on. It has no power to adjudicate, its report binds nobody and creates no right or liability, and it does not decide any dispute between parties. Because it decides nothing, the objections applicable to a judicial or quasi-judicial body do not apply to it. The Court also set out the classification of the permissible limits of article 14, holding that a law may be constitutional though it applies to a single individual where, by reason of special circumstances, that individual may be treated as a class by himself.

Why it matters here, and this is the sentence to remember. Every criticism of a commission's findings in this book, and every question MU sets on the findings of commissions, has to begin from the proposition that a commission finds facts and decides nothing. It is not a court that failed to convict; it is a body that was never able to.