Executive body
Also called: Non-statutory body · Topic: Statutory, Regulatory and Quasi-judicial Bodies · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
An executive body is set up by a government resolution or order. It is not created by the Constitution or by a law passed by a legislature. Because the government alone created it, the government alone can reshape it or close it, without asking Parliament. This makes it the least protected kind of public body.
Example
NITI Aayog was set up by a Cabinet resolution on 1 January 2015. It replaced the Planning Commission (1950), which was also an executive body. The National Commission for Safai Karamcharis has been an executive body since 2004, when the Act behind it lapsed. Since then the government has kept it going through extensions.
Don't confuse with
- Statutory body: it is created by an Act. Its make-up and powers can only be changed by amending that Act, which needs the legislature.
- Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI): this is a mixed case. It was created by a resolution in 1963, but its powers come from a law, the DSPE Act 1946.