Expert bodies created by executive order are vulnerable to political reversal. Should such bodies be given statutory backing? Examine.

An executive body is set up by a government order, so another order can end it. A statutory body gets its mandate from an Act of the legislature. Tamil Nadu recently wound up its Justice Kurian Joseph Committee on Union-State relations even though Part II of its report was still pending. That shows how easily expert work can be lost when a government changes.

Why executive bodies are vulnerable

• Ended by one order: no debate in the legislature is needed. The new government said the committee overlapped with the State Law Commission, even though the committee had already submitted Part I.
• The successor is just as fragile: the State Law Commission is itself non-statutory, so the work it inherits faces the same risk.
• Weak follow-up: by 2001, the Inter-State Council had taken a view on 230 of the Sarkaria Commission's 247 recommendations. It had implemented only 108 and rejected 35 [1].

Case for statutory backing

• Continuity and tenure: a fixed mandate and fixed terms protect members from political pressure. One example is the NHRC under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993.
• Accountability: an Act can require reports to be tabled in the legislature along with an action-taken report. Any rejection then has to be reasoned, not silent.
• Credibility: advice from a statutory body carries more weight in Union-State negotiations.

Limits of statutory backing

• Rigidity: a short-term panel with a narrow task does not need a permanent legal structure, and passing a law is slow.
• A statute does not ensure action: the ISC Standing Committee finished discussing all 273 Punchhi Commission recommendations only in 2018, eight years after the report [2]. The Article 263 Inter-State Council itself rarely meets.
• Democratic choice: an elected government can fairly want the freedom to pick its own advisers.

Way forward

• Give statutory status to standing bodies such as State Law Commissions, with fixed tenure.
• For short-term panels, require two things before they can be dissolved. Interim reports must be tabled in the Assembly. The government must reply to each recommendation in writing, as the ISC did for Sarkaria [1].

In short, these bodies are vulnerable less because of their legal form than because no one is bound to act on their work. A calibrated approach would keep expert work alive while respecting each government's choices: a statute for permanent bodies, and transparency safeguards for short-term ones. This would advance the cooperative federalism that both the Sarkaria and Punchhi Commissions recommended.