Making Law Commission Of India A Statutory Body Within Legislative Domain, Not Up To The Court: Supreme Court

Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha on Friday denied BJP leader and Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay's prayer to make the 22nd Law Commission of India a statutory body on the ground that such a direction lied within the exclusive domain of the legislature. 

At the outset, CJI Chandrachud enquired Attorney General for India R Venkatramani about the position of Law Commission. The AG replied–

"The Law commission has been constituted. Nothing survives in this matter." 

However Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay submitted that the other two prayers in his plea still remained to be resolved.

His second prayer pertained to making the Law commission of India a statutory body and the third prayer pertained to directing the Law commission of India to prepare a report on black money.

The court was unwilling to grant relief for these prayers. CJI DY Chandrachud, while dictating the order said–

"The petitioner has sought a direction to the Union government to – 1. constitute the 22nd Law Commission of India ; 2. make the Law Commission a statutory body. AG Venkatramani states that the 22nd Law Commission has already been constituted. The petitioner as noted above also seeks a direction to make the law commission "a statutory body". Such a direction implicates a writ of mandamus being issued to parliament in its legislative capacity. It is settled position of law that a writ cannot be issued to Parliament to enact a law. That pertains exclusively to the legislative domain. Hence we declined to entertain the petition for the subsequent part of relief. The final prayer in the petition is to direct law commission to prepare a report in the matter of confiscating black money, benami properties, and disproportionate assets. Mr Upadhyay states that the relief as sought in prayer C is not pressed as the petitioner would pursue his request before the Law commission."

Case Title: Ashwini Kumar Upadhya v. Union of India And Ors. WP(C) No. 1477/2020 

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