The Commissions of Inquiry Act 1952

In one line

The Act lets a Government appoint a body to inquire into any definite matter of public importance, gives it the powers of a civil court, and requires it to be appointed if either House so resolves.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the Commissions of Inquiry Act 1952, Act 60 of 1952, dated 14 August 1952, is an Act to provide for the appointment of Commissions of Inquiry and for vesting such Commissions with certain powers; under section 3 the appropriate Government may, if it is of opinion that it is necessary, and shall if a resolution to that effect is passed by each House of Parliament or the Legislature of the State, appoint by notification a Commission of Inquiry for the purpose of making an inquiry into any definite matter of public importance.

What a commission of inquiry is for

It establishes facts about an episode. A criminal trial asks whether a named accused committed a defined offence; a commission asks what happened, why, and who along the chain contributed. The Lentin Commission, worked in Module III, is the standard illustration.

It is used where the ordinary machinery has failed or cannot reach. Where the regulator was part of the problem, where the episode is too large for one prosecution, or where the question is about a system rather than about an individual.

It is public. Its report goes to the appropriate Government and, in the usual case, is laid before the legislature.

And it is quick by comparison. A commission reports in a year or two where a prosecution takes a decade, which is why, as the Lentin chapter observed, the most effective Indian response to a serious episode of institutional wrongdoing is a body with no power to decide anything.

Section 3: appointment

Who may appoint. The appropriate Government, meaning the Central Government in relation to a matter relatable to a Union List entry and the State Government in relation to a matter relatable to a State or Concurrent List entry, subject to the opening words which now read "save as otherwise provided in the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act 2013".

When it may. If it is of opinion that it is necessary so to do.

When it must. If a resolution to that effect is passed by each House of Parliament or, as the case may be, by the Legislature of the State. This is the most important thing in the section and it is usually missed. The legislature can compel an inquiry that the executive does not want.

Into what. Any definite matter of public importance. Both words carry weight: the matter must be definite, so a roving inquiry into general conditions is outside the section, and it must be of public importance.