It is a statutory body set up under the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992.
The commission is made up of :
a Chairperson,
a Vice Chairperson and
five members.
Unlike other bodies like NCSC and NCST, NCM has no constitutional backing or status.
It works under the Ministry of Minority Affairs, and before the formation of this ministry it came under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
It looks into complaints from members of five religious communities — Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Zoroastrians (Parsis). Jain community was notified as a minority community in 2014.
Some state viz. Andhra Pradesh, Assam , Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi , Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have also set up State Minorities Commissions.
There’s no prescribed selection process for making appointments with the Cabinet Appointments Committee arbitrarily picking up names from a list suggested by the “nodal” ministry.