Which of the following universities were empowered to confer the honorary…

Concept — A degree-conferring power can be vested only in an institution that already exists, and an honorary degree such as the LLD (Doctor of Laws) is awarded honoris causa only where a specific statute or government order grants that authority. A question of the form "which universities were empowered in year Y" is therefore settled by two facts: the year each institution came into being, and which bodies the enactment of that year named.

Applying it here — Wood’s Dispatch of 1854 led to the creation of the three presidency universities in 1857, and Act I of 1884 expressly empowered those same three universities to confer the honorary degree of LLD. Set the founding year of each of the five names given in the stem against the year 1884:

Cross-check —

1. Dacca was founded in 1921 and Mysore in 1916, so neither institution existed in 1884; any set naming either of them is ruled out on chronology alone.

2. That eliminates the set Dacca–Calcutta–Bombay, the set Bombay–Madras–Mysore and the set Dacca–Madras–Mysore.

3. The one surviving set is Calcutta, Bombay and Madras — all three established in 1857 and all three named in Act I of 1884.

Hence the correct choice is the one reading “(B), (C), (D) Only”, that is Calcutta, Bombay and Madras — the three presidency universities set up in 1857, which Act I of 1884 empowered to confer the honorary LLD.