National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) — UPSC Polity

The NCRWC — Origin, Composition, Terms of Reference & Areas of Concern

🎯 Exam priority: Foundational. Know the NCRWC's basic facts — Venkatachaliah, 2000-2002, 249 recommendations — and four or five of its most consequential proposals; the full 249-item list is never asked wholesale.

Fifty years after the Constitution came into force, the government set up a commission not to rewrite it, but to ask a narrower question: was it actually working as intended?

Origin, Composition & Terms of Reference

• The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) was set up by a Government of India resolution in 2000 — an 11-member body headed by M.N. Venkatachaliah, a former Chief Justice of India. It submitted its report in 2002.

• Its other ten members included B.P. Jeevan Reddy (then Chairman of the Law Commission), R.S. Sarkaria (a former Supreme Court judge — the same jurist who had earlier chaired the Sarkaria Commission on Centre-State relations), Soli Sorabjee and K. Parasaran (a serving and a former Attorney-General respectively), and Subhash Kashyap (a former Lok Sabha Secretary-General), among others. P.A. Sangma, a former Lok Sabha Speaker, resigned three months before the report was submitted — the Commission was deeply divided over whether non-Indian-born citizens (and their descendants) should be eligible for high constitutional offices like President, Vice-President, Prime Minister or Chief Justice of India.

• Its terms of reference required examining, in light of fifty years' experience, how far the Constitution's existing provisions could meet the needs of efficient governance and socio-economic development — and to recommend changes strictly within the framework of parliamentary democracy, without touching the Constitution's basic structure or basic features. The Commission itself clarified that its task was to review, not rewrite, and that its role was purely recommendatory and advisory — Parliament remained free to accept or reject any recommendation.

• On its own initiative, the Commission identified eleven areas of study: strengthening the institutions of parliamentary democracy; electoral reforms; the pace of socio-economic change; literacy, employment and social security; Union-State relations; decentralisation via Panchayati Raj; enlargement of Fundamental Rights; effectuation of Fundamental Duties; effectuation of Directive Principles; legal control of fiscal and monetary policy; and administrative standards in public life.

• Its areas of concern painted a stark picture of India circa 2000: rising criminalisation of politics and a politician-criminal-bureaucrat nexus, alongside genuine political instability — just four Prime Ministers had governed the country for 40 of its first 54 years, yet the country saw five Lok Sabha elections from 1989 onward alone; a deteriorating fiscal position and a growing "parallel economy"; a criminal justice system it called "on the verge of collapse"; and stark social-infrastructure gaps — 380 million children below 14 with inadequate provision for their education and health, and 96.4% of the primary-education budget consumed by salaries alone.

Key Recommendations I — Fundamental Rights, Property & Directive Principles

The largest share of the NCRWC's recommendations addressed Part III and Part IV of the Constitution directly — proposing to widen rights language and sharpen how directive principles get implemented.

On Fundamental Rights

• The Commission proposed extending the grounds of prohibited discrimination under Articles 15 and 16 to include "ethnic or social origin, political or other opinion, property or birth," and expanding Article 19's freedom of speech to explicitly cover "the freedom of the press and other media" and the freedom to "seek, receive and impart information."

• It proposed several genuinely new Fundamental Rights: a right against torture, cruelty or inhuman treatment; a right to compensation for illegal deprivation of life or liberty; a right to privacy and family life; a right to 80 days' minimum rural wage employment a year; and a right to safe drinking water and ecological conservation.

• On Article 21-A (right to education), it proposed extending free education to age fourteen for all children, and to age eighteen specifically for girls and children from Scheduled Castes/Tribes. On preventive detention (Article 22), it proposed capping the maximum period at six months, with the advisory board comprising a chairman and two sitting High Court judges.

• It recommended treating Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism as religions genuinely separate from Hinduism under Article 25 — at present, the word "Hindu" in that Article is defined to include all three. It also proposed restricting Article 31-B's judicial-review immunity for laws placed in the Ninth Schedule to only those genuinely concerning agrarian reform, reservation, or implementing the Directive Principles in Article 39(b)/(c) — a narrowing the Supreme Court itself moved toward a few years later, when it subjected post-1973 Ninth Schedule laws to basic-structure scrutiny.

On the Right to Property & Directive Principles

• It proposed recasting Article 300-A to bar arbitrary deprivation or acquisition of property, and to guarantee Scheduled Castes/Tribes a right to suitable rehabilitation before their agricultural, forest or homestead land is acquired.

• On Directive Principles, it proposed renaming Part IV to "Directive Principles of State Policy and Action," adding a new principle on population control, setting up an independent National Education Commission every five years, and establishing an Inter-Faith Commission to promote religious harmony.

Key Recommendations II — Parliament & the Executive

The Commission's recommendations on Parliament and the executive aimed squarely at the instability and impunity its "areas of concern" had flagged.

On Parliament

• It proposed amending Article 105 (and Article 194 for state legislatures) to clarify that a member's parliamentary-privilege immunity does not cover corrupt acts committed in connection with House duties, with no court taking cognizance of a member's in-House conduct without the Speaker's or Chairman's prior sanction. It also recommended discontinuing the MP Local Area Development Scheme, fixing minimum annual sitting days — 120 days for the Lok Sabha, 100 for the Rajya Sabha, and 50-90 days for state assemblies depending on size — and setting up a Standing Constitution Committee to scrutinise constitutional-amendment bills before introduction.

On the Executive & Administration

• For a hung Parliament, it proposed letting the Lok Sabha itself elect the Leader of the House, whom the President would then appoint Prime Minister — with the same procedure at the state level. It also proposed a "constructive vote of no-confidence": any no-confidence motion against a Prime Minister must simultaneously propose an alternative leader to be voted on together, preventing a purely destructive no-confidence vote that topples a government without offering a replacement.

• It proposed capping the Council of Ministers at a maximum of 10% of the popular house's total strength by law — notably stricter than the 15% cap Parliament actually adopted a year later through the 91st Amendment, 2003 (already covered in this playlist's Coalition Government article). It further recommended a constitutional Lokpal, specifically keeping the Prime Minister outside its purview, plus state Lokayuktas — a marked contrast with the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013 that was eventually enacted, which does bring the Prime Minister within Lokpal's jurisdiction, subject to safeguards.

• Other executive-reform proposals included lateral entry into government posts above the joint-secretary level, amending Article 311 to both protect honest officials and penalise dishonest ones, guaranteeing a right to information with an "oath of transparency" replacing the traditional oath of secrecy, and enacting whistle-blower legislation to fight corruption.

Key Recommendations III — Judiciary & Centre-State Relations

Judicial reform and Centre-State relations rounded out the Commission's most structurally significant proposals.

On the Judiciary

• It proposed a National Judicial Commission to recommend Supreme Court judge appointments — composed of the Chief Justice of India (chairman), the two senior-most Supreme Court judges, the Union Law Minister, and one person nominated by the President — plus a linked committee to examine complaints against Supreme Court and High Court judges. It also proposed raising the retirement age to 65 for High Court judges and 68 for Supreme Court judges, restricting contempt-of-court and unconstitutionality powers to only the Supreme Court and High Courts, a 90-day deadline for delivering judgments after a case concludes, and introducing plea bargaining.

On Centre-State & Inter-State Relations

• It proposed that the President appoint a state's Governor only after consulting that state's Chief Minister, and that Article 356 (President's Rule) be retained but used only as a "remedy of the last resort" — with a ministry's loss of majority tested strictly on the floor of the House, so a Governor cannot dismiss a ministry that still enjoys the House's confidence. It further proposed that a state Assembly should never be dissolved before the Article 356 proclamation is laid before Parliament, that Parliament replace the River Boards Act, 1956 with a stronger law, and that the President be given a firm three-month deadline to decide on a state bill reserved for consideration.

Key Recommendations IV — Elections, Political Parties & Anti-Defection

Electoral integrity drew some of the Commission's sharpest recommendations — several aimed directly at criminalisation and unregulated political finance.

On Electoral Processes & Political Parties

• It proposed disqualifying anyone chargesheeted for an offence carrying five years' imprisonment or more from contesting Parliament or a state legislature, and permanently debarring anyone convicted of a heinous crime like murder, rape or dacoity from ever contesting again. It recommended special courts for pending criminal cases against politicians and for election petitions, and raising the vote-forfeiture threshold from 16.67% to 25% of valid votes polled.

• On appointing the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners, it proposed a five-member recommending committee: the Prime Minister, the Leaders of Opposition in both Houses, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, and the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. On political parties, it recommended a comprehensive registration and regulation law compelling parties to maintain audited accounts, requiring candidates to declare assets and liabilities, barring tickets for convicted or charge-framed candidates, and bringing transparency to political funding.

On the Anti-Defection Law

• The Commission actually proposed a considerably stricter anti-defection regime than the one already in force under the Tenth Schedule (covered separately in this playlist): any defector — individually or in a group — should have to resign and contest a fresh election; defectors should be barred from any ministerial or remunerative political post for the rest of that legislature's term; a defector's vote cast to topple a government should be treated as invalid; and the power to decide defection questions should shift from the presiding officer to the Election Commission altogether. None of these specific changes has actually been enacted — the presiding officer still decides defection questions today, exactly as the Supreme Court confirmed in Kihoto Hollohan v. Zachillhu (1992).

Key Recommendations V — Decentralisation, Social Justice & the North-East

The Commission's remaining proposals addressed local self-government, social-justice gaps, and the North-East's distinctive institutional needs.

On Decentralisation & Social Justice

• For Panchayats and Municipalities, it proposed restructuring the Eleventh and Twelfth Schedules to create a genuinely separate fiscal domain for local bodies, formally declaring them "institutions of self-government," empowering the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) to standardise Panchayat audits, and shifting delimitation, reservation and seat-rotation functions to a dedicated Delimitation Commission rather than the State Election Commission.

• On social justice, it proposed ensuring reasonable SC/ST/BC representation on the higher judiciary, transferring all Fifth Schedule tribal areas to Sixth Schedule coverage (already discussed in this playlist's Union Territories & Scheduled/Tribal Areas article), setting up special courts exclusively for cases under the SCs and STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, and establishing a fully empowered National Authority for the liberation and rehabilitation of bonded labour.

On the North-East

• It proposed extending 73rd and 74th Amendment opportunities to North-Eastern states while respecting the region's distinct political traditions, entrusting Sixth Schedule and Eleventh Schedule subjects to Autonomous District Councils, and setting up a National Immigration Council to review the Citizenship Act, the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, and the Foreigners Act.

What Actually Happened — Which NCRWC Recommendations Were Adopted?

Being purely advisory, most of the NCRWC's 249 recommendations — 58 needing constitutional amendments, 86 needing legislation, and 105 achievable through executive action alone — were never adopted wholesale. A handful materialised over the following two decades, several in a meaningfully different form than the Commission proposed:

What Actually Happened, Verified

Further Reading

• Standard NCERT-level texts and reference books on the Indian Constitution and Polity (any UPSC reading list).

• The Report of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (2002), and the Supreme Court judgment in Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India (2023).

Why UPSC Asks This

• The NCRWC is tested far more on "what happened next" than on its raw recommendation list — know which proposals were adopted, adopted differently, or dropped entirely.

• Don't confuse the NCRWC's proposed National Judicial Commission with the actually-enacted (and later struck-down) National Judicial Appointments Commission — related ideas, a decade apart, with very different fates.

• The Commission's own self-description matters: purely recommendatory and advisory, explicitly barred from touching the basic structure — it was a review body, not a Constituent Assembly.

Test Yourself: Practice Questions & PYQs

NCRWC practice — its origin, composition and terms of reference, its recommendations across Fundamental Rights, Parliament, the executive, the judiciary, Centre-State relations, elections and anti-defection, and a currency-verified account of which recommendations were actually adopted, adopted differently, or dropped. Then Prelims-pattern PYQs.

Practice Questions

Q1. The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) was set up by a Government of India resolution in:

• (a) 2002

• (b) 2005

• (c) 2000

• (d) 1998

Q2. The NCRWC, an 11-member commission, was headed by:

• (a) M.N. Venkatachaliah, a former Chief Justice of India

• (b) Soli Sorabjee

• (c) B.P. Jeevan Reddy

• (d) Justice R.S. Sarkaria

Q3. Which member of the NCRWC resigned three months before the report's submission, owing to the Commission's division over the eligibility of non-Indian-born citizens for high constitutional office?

• (a) Abid Hussain

• (b) K. Parasaran

• (c) P.A. Sangma

• (d) Subhash Kashyap

Q4. In all, the NCRWC made how many recommendations?

• (a) 299

• (b) 149

• (c) 199

• (d) 249

Q5. The NCRWC proposed capping the Council of Ministers, including the Prime Minister/Chief Minister, at what percentage of the popular house's total strength?

• (a) 20%

• (b) 12%

• (c) 10%

• (d) 15%

Q6. The NCRWC recommended treating which of the following as religions genuinely separate from Hinduism under Article 25?

• (a) Only Buddhism

• (b) Only Sikhism

• (c) Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism

• (d) Sikhism and Zoroastrianism

Q7. The NCRWC's proposed 'constructive vote of no-confidence' requires that a no-confidence motion against a Prime Minister:

• (a) Be signed by at least 100 members

• (b) Be moved only once in a Lok Sabha's five-year term

• (c) Simultaneously propose an alternative leader to be voted on together

• (d) Be approved first by the President

Q8. The NCRWC's proposed National Judicial Commission for recommending Supreme Court judge appointments was to be chaired by:

• (a) The Vice-President of India

• (b) The President of India

• (c) The Union Law Minister

• (d) The Chief Justice of India

Q9. The National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), enacted through the 99th Amendment in 2014 as an institutional echo of the NCRWC's judicial-commission idea, was:

• (a) Upheld and remains in force today

• (b) Struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015 as unconstitutional, reviving the collegium system

• (c) Replaced the collegium system permanently without challenge

• (d) Never actually enacted into law

Q10. Under the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment...) Act, 2023, the committee that appoints the CEC and ECs consists of the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and:

• (a) The Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha

• (b) A Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister

• (c) The Chief Justice of India

• (d) The Speaker of the Lok Sabha

Q11. The NCRWC's proposal to shift the power to decide anti-defection questions from the presiding officer to the Election Commission has:

• (a) Been adopted through the 91st Amendment

• (b) Been adopted through a Supreme Court judgment

• (c) Been adopted only for the Rajya Sabha

• (d) Never been adopted — the presiding officer still decides, as confirmed in Kihoto Hollohan v. Zachillhu

Q12. The 86th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2002, which added Article 21-A, was operationalised through which subsequent legislation covering children aged 6-14 uniformly?

• (a) The Juvenile Justice Act, 2015

• (b) The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009

• (c) The Right to Information Act, 2005

• (d) The National Food Security Act, 2013

UPSC Previous Year Questions (PYQs)

Pattern: the NCRWC's own basic facts (2000/2002, Venkatachaliah, 249 recommendations); 'NCRWC proposed X, but Y actually happened' contrast questions (10% vs 15% ministerial cap; Lokpal excluding vs including the PM; National Judicial Commission vs the struck-down NJAC; the 5-member vs the actual 3-member CEC/EC appointment committee); and which proposals were never adopted at all (anti-defection overhaul).

Q13. Consider the following statements regarding the NCRWC: (1) It was a purely recommendatory and advisory body, with Parliament free to accept or reject its recommendations. (2) Its terms of reference explicitly barred it from recommending any change that would interfere with the Constitution's basic structure. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

• (a) Both 1 and 2

• (b) Neither 1 nor 2

• (c) 2 only

• (d) 1 only

Q14. Consider the following statements: (1) Of the NCRWC's 249 recommendations, 58 required constitutional amendments. (2) The remaining recommendations were evenly split between those requiring legislative measures and those achievable through executive action alone. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

• (a) Both 1 and 2

• (b) Neither 1 nor 2

• (c) 1 only

• (d) 2 only

Q15. Consider the following statements regarding the Lokpal: (1) The NCRWC, in 2002, recommended a constitutional Lokpal that would keep the Prime Minister outside its purview. (2) The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013, as actually enacted, brings the Prime Minister within the Lokpal's jurisdiction, subject to safeguards. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

• (a) 1 only

• (b) 2 only

• (c) Both 1 and 2

• (d) Neither 1 nor 2

Q16. Consider the following statements regarding the NCRWC's recommendations on Article 356: (1) It recommended that Article 356 be retained but used only as a remedy of the last resort. (2) It recommended that a ministry's loss of majority be tested only on the floor of the House, so that a Governor could not dismiss a ministry enjoying the House's confidence. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

• (a) Both 1 and 2

• (b) 2 only

• (c) 1 only

• (d) Neither 1 nor 2

Q17. Consider the following statements: (1) The NCRWC recommended that a defector's vote cast to topple a government should be treated as invalid. (2) This specific recommendation has since been incorporated into the Tenth Schedule through a constitutional amendment. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

• (a) Both 1 and 2

• (b) 2 only

• (c) Neither 1 nor 2

• (d) 1 only

Q18. Consider the following statements regarding the current process for appointing the Chief Election Commissioner: (1) The Supreme Court's Anoop Baranwal v. Union of India (2023) judgment had directed an interim committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition, and the Chief Justice of India. (2) The CEC and Other ECs (Appointment...) Act, 2023 subsequently enacted by Parliament retained the Chief Justice of India on this committee. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

• (a) 2 only

• (b) 1 only

• (c) Neither 1 nor 2

• (d) Both 1 and 2

Mains Practice Questions

Use these to frame full-length answers. You don't have to answer one exactly — they show the angles UPSC tests, so let them guide which points you cover.

• Discuss the composition, terms of reference and key areas of concern identified by the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC).

• Examine the NCRWC's major recommendations relating to Fundamental Rights and the Right to Property.

• Discuss the NCRWC's recommendations on strengthening Parliament and reforming the executive, including the 'constructive vote of no-confidence.'

• Compare the NCRWC's proposed National Judicial Commission with the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) actually enacted in 2014, and account for their different fates.

• Examine the NCRWC's recommendations on the anti-defection law, and discuss why none of them has been adopted to date.

• 'The NCRWC's recommendations, though largely unimplemented in their original form, continued to shape constitutional reform for two decades after its report.' Discuss with examples.