Statutory Bodies and Corporations: Overview

Statutory Corporation is the one that is made by the state. They are normal companies that come under the government, their shareholders may or may not be a part of it. There can be a Statutory body with no shareholders at all and are under control of the national or sub-national government but this happens in some cases. 

Statutory body meaning is a body of the government established through an Act which oversees a particular matter. Corporations refer to capitalistic enterprises established to extend a particular commodity, i.e., good or service, to its customers. When talking about government and Corporations, here, we are referring to public Corporations or public sector enterprises in particular. Let us go into some more details about these two Bodies which fall under the government of a country and its functionaries.

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Statutory Body Meaning

A Statutory body is an important body of the government which is enabled with the right to pass certain laws on behalf of the government pertaining to certain areas of government. For example, the National Commission for Women (NCW) is a Statutory body in India which focuses on the subject of providing equality for women and is authorised to pass laws in favour of this subject. We will also be looking at a long list of Statutory Bodies in India below.

A Statutory body is formed through an Act passed by the Parliament or by the State Legislature. A note to remember here is that a Statutory body, while being highly necessary to governance, is not a constitutional body. A Statutory body is set up by the Parliament itself, and each Statutory body focuses on a single subject matter. 

Role of Statutory Body: 

A Statutory Body is nothing more than an organisation that has the power to scan and detect the activities of the business and to make sure that they are following official rules as per the guidelines and to check their legal status. 

Statutory Bodies in India

The following is a list of the most prominent Statutory Bodies in India which play an important role in the functioning of the government in terms of its purpose of appropriate representation of the people in its country. This will help make clearer what is a Statutory body in India.

1. National Human Rights Commission

Established in 1993, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) was established under the statute of the Protection of Human Rights Act in the same year. This statutory body of India works towards protecting and promoting the basic human rights, i.e. the right to life, liberty, equality and dignity of all individuals in India.

2. National Commission for Women (NCW)

The rights of women have been continually denied to them from the beginning, thus the National Commission for Women was established through the National Commission for Women Act in 1990 to battle this. This statutory body seeks to enable all women of India with the dignity, equality and empowerment that they deserve, by seeking to fight the problems that arise due to the discrimination and atrocities committed against women.

3. National Commission for Minorities (NCM)

Minorities in India consist of the religious minorities, i.e. Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs, Jains and Zoroastrians (among others), and also socio-economic minorities who are granted Scheduled Tribe/Scheduled Caste status. The NCM, established in 1992, is a statutory organisation which seeks to safeguard and protect the interests of these minorities with the help of rightful policies, regulations and laws.

4. Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT)

A tribunal is a small-time court of law established for a specific purpose. The Armed Forces Tribunal is a statutory authority which was established in 2007. It is the statutory body which is solely to resolve disputes within the armed forces, i.e. the Indian Navy, Indian Air Force and Indian Army in the matters pertaining to the various armed forces-related Acts by the Indian government.

5. National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC)

This is a body of the government of India which upholds citizens’ consumer rights. This body lists the rights of a consumer with the promise to uphold them in the case where they have been violated. While upholding consumer rights, the NCDRC also aims to spread awareness about the same among the public.

Public Corporations in India

A corporation is a company or group of companies which is owned by the list of its shareholders. A Public Corporation, which is what we are talking about here, is a corporation which is owned and operated by the government while holding the same powers as that of a private enterprise. They are also called public sector enterprises and are statutory organisations under the ownership of the government.

The essential difference between private and Public Corporations is that private company shares are held by private shareholders and public shares are traded in the stock market to raise more capital.

Here is a List of Some Public Corporation Statutory Organisations in India:

• Life Insurance Corporation (LIC)

• Reserve Bank of India (RBI)

• Air India Corporation

• Food Corporation of India (FCI)

• State Bank of India (SBI)

• Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC)

• Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) 

Advantages of Statutory Corporations 

• We all know that all the government never speaks in between the decision making of public Corporations, that provides them the opportunity to work like a real business. The level of freedom in the corporation is very high. 

• Since they are free to try and work without any formal interruption, they try new activities and take the decisions without any delay. 

• Changes in the political system of the nation does not create any trouble for the public Corporations and their work does not hinder or halt because of this. They work in a continuous process throughout. 

• Statutory corporations can hire professionals as their managers by providing them better perks than the government jobs. 

Their Disadvantages : 

• The passing of a special law to permit the making of public corporations is one lengthy process. It is very time consuming and gets frustrating after a point. 

• In the need of power or control change and to make it more flexible in the corporation, special law has to be passed by the parliament. 

• In theory, these corporations work on their own and no one disturbs them. This is not the case in reality. Political disturbance disturbs the internal functioning of the corporations.