The quiet indifference with which the appointment of the Twelfth Finance Commission has been greeted in academic and state government circles bears testimony to the decline of the Finance Commission as a constitutional institution. Against this backdrop it is useful to try to understand the true intentions of the framers of the Constitution and to bring out the many ways in which powerful sections of society have manipulated the composition, terms of reference and even the recommendations of successive Finance Commissions to serve sectional and regional interests.
