What is the difference between a committee and a commission?
A committee is a group of people who meet and deliberate according to fixed rules in order to make a decision or produce a document as a group.
A commission is a group of people who are entrusted (that is the etymology) by a government to carry out a task. Sometimes the task is a specific one (like ascertaining a particular fact or resolving a particular problem) and sometimes the task is more long-term (like the SEC, that is, Securities and Exchange Commission).
A commission is usually distinct from other kinds of agency in two ways: it has no single, permanent administrator, and it has no independent or constitutional authority of its own; it operates under the authority of another part of the government.
Of course, a commission can be a committee (like the 9/11 Commission), but very few committees are commissions, and some commissions are not committees.
1. Palekar Tribunal : Journalists' Pay reforms
2. U.C. Banerjee Commission : Enquiry into Godhra carnage (railways)
3. Sarkaria Commission : Centre-State relations
4. Srikrishna Commission : 1992 Bombay riots
5. Thakkar Commission : Indira Gandhi assassination case
6. Phukan Commission & Saharya Committee : Tehelka tapes
7. Malimath Commission : Criminal Justice
8. Upendra Commission : Inquiry on rape and murder Thangjam Manorama Devi
9. Malhotra Committee : Insurance Reforms
10. Janaki Ram Committee : Security scam
11. Ajay Vikram Singh Committee : Faster promotions in army
12. Rajinder Sachar Committee {1} : Companies and MRPT Act
13. Rajindar Sachar Committee {2} : Report on the social, economic and educational status of the Muslims of India
14. Jyoti Basu Committee : Report on Octroi abolition
15 Balwant Rai Mehta Committee : Recommendations on decentralization system
16. Sawant Committee : Enquiry on corruption, charges against ministers & Anna Hazare
17. Chelliah Committee : Eradicating black money
18. Kothari Commission : Educational reforms
19. Wanchoo Committee : Tax enquiry
20. Bhanu Pratap Singh Committee : Agriculture
21. Aggarwal Committee : Nepotism in granting petrol pump, LPG connections
22. Rangarajan Committee : Reforms in private sector
23. Naresh Chandra Committee : Corporate governance
24. Chakravarti Committee : Banking sector reforms
25. Rekhi Committee : Structure of indirect taxation
26. G.V.Ramakrishna Committee : Disinvestment in PSU shares
27. Kelkar Committee : First committee on backward castes
28. P.C.Hotha Committee : Restructuring of civil services
29. Justice B.N.Kirpal Committee : 1st chairman National Forest Commission
30. Godbole Committee : Enron Power Project
31. J.C.Kumarappa Committee : Congress agrarian Reforms Committee
32. Swaminathan Committee : Population policy
33. Rangarajan Committee : Statistics
34. Wardha Committee : Inquiry on murder of Graham Staines
35. N.N. Vohra Committee : Criminalization of politics
36. Kelkar Committee {2} : Direct-Indirect Taxes
37. Alagh Committee : Civil Service Examinations
38. Abid Hussain Committee : Recommendations on Small scale industries
39. Narasimham Committee : Banking sector reforms
40. Chelliah Committee : Tax reforms
41. Mashelkar Committee : National Auto Fuel Policy
42. Boothalingam Committee : Recommendations on integrated wages, income and price policy
43. Omkar Goswami Committee : Industrial sickness
44. Yashpal Committee : Review of School Education system
45. Ram Nandan Prasad Committee : Constitution of creamy layers among Backward Castes
46. Kelkar Committee{3} : Enquiry on Kargil defense deals.
47. M.M. Punchhi Commission : Centre-State Relations [note- this committee has been set up recently- after the sad demise of Justice (Retd.) Sarkaria]
48. Thorat Committee : Caste-based discrimination against students in AIIMS
49. R.K.Raghavan Committee : Ragging in colleges
51. James Lyngdoh Committee- Student politics and student-body elections in colleges.
52. E.M.S. Nachiappan Committee : Reforms in the higher judiciary
53. Soli Sorabjee Committee : Police Reforms [it was constituted after the Judgement of the Supreme Court in Parkash Singh vs Union of India (2006)]
54. Ganguli Committee : Review of health facility planning and healthcare engineering and management
55. Percy Mistry Committee : Making Mumbai an IFC (International Financial Centre)
56. K.T. Thomas Committee- to look into ways of enhancing the effectives of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act
57. Fali S. Nariman Committee- Accountability and damages with regard to destruction of public property
58. Satwant Reddy Committee- review of laws relating to registration of pharmaceutical drugs and clinical trials
59. Raghuram C. Rajan Committee- financial sector reforms
60. Shah Commission (1966)- reorganisation of States
61. Tarkunde Committee- composition of the Election Commission and other electoral reforms
62. Dinesh Goswami Committee- electoral reforms
63. G.V.K. Rao Committee (1985) - set up by the planning commission in 1985, to look into the Administrative Arrangement for Rural Development and poverty Alleviation Programmes.
64. Butler Committee : Relation between Indian states & paramount power (the Queen of Britain)
65. Hurtog Committee : Growth of British India education-its effects
66. Muddiman Committee : Working of Diarchy as in Montague Chelmsford reforms
