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Public Authorities and Power Holders
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LLM · Group 1 Constitutional and Administrative Law
2025-26 Examination
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LLM Group 1 Constitutional and Administrative Law Public Authorities and Power Holders 2025-26 Question Paper with Solutions
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First published on munotes.in on 12 August 2026.
This edition revised 31 October 2026.
Published by munotes.in, Mumbai.
Model answers written and edited by the munotes.in editorial desk.
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The University does not publish an official answer key for this paper. The answers in this volume are model answers, written to show how a full-mark answer is built. They are a study aid, not an authority on what an examiner marked.
The question paper reproduced here is the paper as set by the University of Mumbai at the 2025-26 examination.
The answers in this volume state the law as it stands today, not as it stood when the paper was set. Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, inserted in 2018, again requires prior approval before any inquiry into a public servant, and in Centre for Public Interest Litigation v. Union of India, 13 January 2026, two judges divided on its validity, so the question now goes to a larger Bench. CBI v. R.R. Kishore, 11 September 2023, held section 6A of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act void from its insertion in 2003. The amending Acts of 2021, upheld in Dr. Jaya Thakur v. Union of India, let the Director's two year tenure be extended to five. State of West Bengal v. Union of India, 10 July 2024, held maintainable a State's suit over investigation without its consent. And the Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2014, has never been brought into force, so protected disclosures still rest on the Resolution of 2004. Where an answer relies on any of these it gives the date.
Contents
The questions below are the paper as the University of Mumbai set it at the 2025-26 examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2025-26 examination, reproduced as the University of Mumbai set them, in the order it set them. Nothing has been reworded, added or left out. Only the answers are ours. See the original question paper.
Duration 3 hours · Total marks 100 · 7 questions answered
How to use this volume
Solve the paper first, under exam conditions and against the clock. Then read the answers here and mark your own. Reading a solution before attempting the question feels productive and teaches very little, because recognising an answer is not the same as being able to write one.
SECTION I
Attempt any four questions, all questions carry equal marks, cite case laws
any four of seven · 100 Marks
1."Explain the composition and functions of the Central Vigilance Commission under the 2003 Act."[25]
Answer
For full marks, cover: why the Act exists at all, which is the Vineet Narain mandamus and not ordinary legislative choice; the composition provisions section by section, appointment, tenure, salary and removal, because "composition" in the question means the guarantees of independence and not merely the head count; Centre for Public Interest Litigation, which is the only case in which an appointment to this office has been set aside; the functions under section 8, separating superintendence over the Central Bureau of Investigation from the advisory functions; the enabling powers under sections 11 to 14; the Chief Vigilance Officer network through which the Commission actually works; and a closing assessment of what the Act withheld.
Why there is a 2003 Act at all
The Central Vigilance Commission was not created by Parliament. It was set up by an executive resolution of the Government of India dated 11 February 1964, on the recommendation of the Committee on Prevention of Corruption chaired by K. Santhanam, which reported in 1964. For thirty-nine years the country's apex integrity institution therefore rested on a resolution that the same executive could have withdrawn at any time, and its advice bound nobody.
The Act is the direct product of a judicial direction, and the answer should open with it. In Vineet Narain v. Union of India, (1998) 1 SCC 226, decided on 18 December 1997, the Supreme Court dealt with the inaction of the investigating agencies in the Jain hawala matter, in which diaries seized from the Jain brothers recorded payments to politicians and civil servants and the Central Bureau of Investigation had for years done nothing. The petition was brought by a journalist, Vineet Narain.
The Court held that the failure was structural rather than accidental, and it issued directions that were to hold the field until Parliament legislated: the Commission was to be given statutory status; the Central Vigilance Commissioner was to be selected by a committee of the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and the Leader of the Opposition; the Commission was to have superintendence over the Central Bureau of Investigation in anti-corruption work; and the Director of that agency was to have a minimum tenure. The single directive, the executive instruction requiring prior sanction before senior officers could even be investigated, was struck down. The Court also developed the technique of continuing mandamus, retaining the case and monitoring compliance instead of disposing of it with a declaration.
The Act of 2003 is Parliament writing those directions into law. The Central Vigilance Commission Act, 2003, Act 45 of 2003, was preceded by an Ordinance in 1998 and gives the Commission statutory status with retrospective effect from that Ordinance. Anyone answering this question descriptively, as a list of powers, misses the point that every important feature of the composition provisions exists to answer a specific failure that Vineet Narain identified.
Composition: sections 3 to 7
Section 3 makes the Commission a multi-member body. It consists of a Central Vigilance Commissioner as Chairperson and not more than two Vigilance Commissioners as Members. Multi-membership matters: a single incumbent can be isolated or waited out, whereas a bench of three must be persuaded, and section 9(6) provides that no act or proceeding is invalidated merely by a vacancy, so the body survives the failure to fill a post.
Section 4 is the appointment safeguard. The Commissioner and the Vigilance Commissioners are appointed by the President by warrant under her hand and seal on the recommendation of a Committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Home Affairs and the Leader of the Opposition in the House of the People. The presence of the Leader of the Opposition is the whole of the safeguard, because it converts an executive appointment into one that at least has to be made in front of a political opponent. Section 4(2) provides that the Committee may act notwithstanding a vacancy in its own membership, a provision that acquired practical importance in Lok Sabhas with no recognised Leader of the Opposition.
Section 5 fixes tenure and removes the incentive to please. The term is four years from the date of entering office, or until the age of sixty-five, whichever is earlier, and the holder is not eligible for reappointment or for any further employment under the Central or a State Government. Salary and allowances are those of the Chairperson and Members of the Union Public Service Commission, and are charged so that they are not open to reduction as a punishment.
Section 6 gives the office judicial security of tenure. The Commissioner or a Vigilance Commissioner may be removed only by order of the President on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity, and only after the Supreme Court, on a reference made by the President, has held on inquiry that the person ought to be removed. There is separate provision for removal on the narrow, objective grounds of insolvency, conviction for an offence involving moral turpitude, paid outside employment, unfitness by infirmity of mind or body, and acquisition of a financial interest likely to affect the office. Section 7 declares that the appointment shall not be invalidated merely by reason of a vacancy in the selection committee.
The appointment cases: integrity of the institution, not of the individual
Centre for Public Interest Litigation v. Union of India, (2011) 4 SCC 1, is the case this question is really asking about. The facts were these. In September 2010 the Government appointed P.J. Thomas as Central Vigilance Commissioner. A criminal charge sheet in the Palmolein import case, arising out of his tenure as a secretary in Kerala, had been pending against him since 1999 and was disclosed to the Committee. The Leader of the Opposition, one of the three members, recorded her dissent. The Government proceeded on the majority.
The Court held that the recommendation, and therefore the appointment, was non est in law. Its reasoning is the part to reproduce. The Committee's duty under section 4 is not merely to satisfy itself of the personal integrity of the candidate; it must consider the institutional integrity of the Commission, that is, whether the appointment will leave the institution able to do the work Parliament gave it. A Commissioner against whom a corruption charge sheet is pending cannot credibly supervise corruption investigations, whatever his personal probity.
The Court also held that the recommendation must be made after considering all relevant material, that the recommendation of a plurality is not the recommendation of the Committee where a relevant consideration has been left out, and that judicial review of such a recommendation lies, though the Court will not sit in appeal on the choice between eligible candidates.
Its bearing on the question is direct. It is the authority that gives the composition provisions teeth, it is the only occasion on which an appointment to this office has been quashed, and it supplies the doctrine, institutional integrity, that a candidate can carry into any question in this paper about the appointment of a public authority.
Common Cause v. Union of India, (2019) 3 SCC 1, marks the outer limit of the Commission's powers over the agency it supervises. On the night of 23 and 24 October 2018 the Commission, and the Government acting on its recommendation, divested Alok Kumar Verma of his functions as Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation and appointed an interim Director in his place, in the course of a public quarrel between the Director and his Special Director. Verma and Common Cause challenged the orders.
The Supreme Court set them aside, holding that section 4B(2) of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946, which forbids the transfer of the Director without the previous consent of the high powered committee that selects him, cannot be circumvented by an order that strips him of every function while leaving him nominally in post; the protection of a two year tenure exists precisely to insulate the office from the executive, and the Commission's power of superintendence does not extend to what is in substance a transfer. The lesson for this answer is that superintendence under section 8(1)(b) is supervision of investigations, not control of the investigator.
That protection has since been altered by Parliament: the Delhi Special Police Establishment (Amendment) Act, 2021 allows the two year tenure to be extended by one year at a time, up to five years in all, on the recommendation of the same committee, and in Dr. Jaya Thakur v. Union of India, decided on 11 July 2023, the Supreme Court upheld that Act and the parallel Central Vigilance Commission (Amendment) Act, 2021, while quashing the particular extensions granted to the incumbent Director of Enforcement. An extendable tenure is a weaker guarantee than a fixed one, because it leaves the holder looking to the authority that grants the extension.
Functions: section 8
Section 8(1) is the heart of the Act and should be reproduced by category rather than recited.
Inquiry functions. The Commission may inquire, or cause an inquiry or investigation to be made, into an offence alleged to have been committed under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, against an employee of the Central Government or of a corporation, Government company, society or local authority owned or controlled by it, on a reference made by the Central Government; and, under clause (d), into a complaint against an official of a category specified in section 8(2) alleging such an offence. Both clauses stop at an offence under that Act: nothing in section 8 reaches an abuse of discretion that is not an offence.
Superintendence over the Central Bureau of Investigation. The Commission exercises superintendence over the Delhi Special Police Establishment in so far as it relates to the investigation of offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, and may give directions to it for the discharge of that function. This is Vineet Narain in statutory form. Its limits are that superintendence does not extend to the investigation of any particular case in the sense of directing its outcome, and that the Commission cannot itself register a first information report or prosecute.
Review functions. It reviews the progress of investigations conducted by that establishment, and, importantly, the progress of applications pending with the competent authorities for sanction of prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Delay in sanction is the standard means by which a prosecution is killed without a decision, and this is the Commission's only lever against it.
Supervisory and advisory functions. It exercises superintendence over the vigilance administration of the ministries of the Central Government and of corporations, companies, societies and local authorities owned or controlled by it; and it tenders advice to the Central Government and those authorities on matters referred to it. Section 8(2) obliges the Central Government and every authority to render the Commission the assistance it requires.
Two functions come from outside the Act and are worth a sentence each. Under section 4C(1) of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, as substituted by the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013, the Central Vigilance Commissioner chairs the committee that recommends the appointment of officers of the rank of Superintendent of Police and above in that establishment. Under section 4BA(3) of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act the Commission also recommends the Director of Prosecution, though since 2014 it has no place on the section 4A(1) committee that selects the Director. Under the Public Interest Disclosure and Protection of Informers Resolution, 2004, the Commission is the designated agency to receive public interest disclosures relating to most central public servants, which in principle makes it the country's protected disclosure channel. The Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2014, has never been brought into force.
The enabling powers, and how the Commission actually works
Section 11 gives the Commission the powers of a civil court while conducting an inquiry: summoning and enforcing the attendance of persons and examining them on oath, requiring the discovery and production of documents, receiving evidence on affidavits, requisitioning public records from any court or office, and issuing commissions for the examination of witnesses. Section 9(5) of the Central Vigilance Commission Act provides for the Commissioner to preside, and section 19 requires the Central Government to consult the Commission on rules and regulations governing the vigilance and disciplinary matters of persons appointed to the public services of the Union.
Section 14 of the Central Vigilance Commission Act supplies the accountability of the accountability body. The Commission's proceedings are conducted at its headquarters at New Delhi (sections 3(6) and 9(1)), and under section 14 it must present annually to the President a report on its work, with a separate part on the functioning of the Delhi Special Police Establishment, which the President causes to be laid before each House of Parliament. No memorandum of action taken goes with it; under the proviso to section 17(3) a Government that does not accept the Commission's advice records its reasons in writing and communicates them to the Commission. The published record of instances in which its advice was not accepted is the single most useful document in this subject, because it measures the difference between an advisory and a binding jurisdiction.
In practice the Commission works through the Chief Vigilance Officers. Every ministry, department, public sector undertaking and public sector bank has a Chief Vigilance Officer appointed with the Commission's concurrence, who is the Commission's extended arm inside the organisation, screens complaints, conducts preliminary inquiries and advises the disciplinary authority. This is the structural feature that makes the Commission's reach possible with a headquarters staff of a few hundred, and it is also its structural weakness, because the officer is a serving employee of the organisation he is required to police.
What the Act withheld
The Commission's advice is advice. Except in relation to the superintendence of the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Commission recommends; the disciplinary authority decides. Nothing in the Act compels acceptance, and the annual report's list of non-acceptances is not accompanied by any consequence.
Its jurisdiction is narrow. It reaches central government servants and employees of central public sector bodies. It does not reach State governments, State services, the private sector, or the great mass of ordinary maladministration that involves no offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act at all. A citizen aggrieved by delay, rudeness or an arbitrary refusal has no remedy here.
It cannot prosecute, and it depends on the sanctioning authority. It has no prosecution wing of the kind the Lokpal was given under section 12 of the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013, and its power over sanction is a power to review progress.
Finally, the office has repeatedly been run in an acting capacity, which is a fair criticism of the guarantees in sections 4 and 5. By an order under section 10(1) of the Act, A.S. Rajeev, a Vigilance Commissioner, was authorised to act as Central Vigilance Commissioner in the vacancy arising on 3 August 2026 on the completion of the tenure of Praveen Kumar Srivastava, until a Commissioner is appointed. A fixed, non-renewable, judicially protected term is the mechanism by which the Act secures independence, and an institution led on authorisation rather than on appointment does not enjoy it in the same measure. A candidate who notices this is answering the question rather than reciting the Act.
Conclusion. The composition of the Central Vigilance Commission is a set of deliberate guarantees rather than an arrangement of offices: a three member body, appointment on the recommendation of a committee containing the Leader of the Opposition, a fixed four year non-renewable term, salary tied to the Union Public Service Commission and removal for proved misbehaviour or incapacity only on a reference to and a finding by the Supreme Court. Its functions divide into inquiry into offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, superintendence and direction over the Central Bureau of Investigation in such investigations, review of investigations and of pending sanctions, superintendence over departmental vigilance administration, and advice.
Every one of those features is traceable to Vineet Narain, and Centre for Public Interest Litigation shows that the composition provisions will be enforced by requiring the selecting committee to protect the integrity of the institution and not merely to check the record of the candidate. What the Act of 2003 did not give the Commission is the power to make anyone do anything outside the field of the Central Bureau of Investigation, and that, rather than any defect in its composition, is why the office remains a weaker instrument than the statute makes it look.
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