Commerce Secretary Dipak Chatterjee may be a little upset over what happened last week. But he does not wear the look of a worried man.
Just when he was readying to relinquish his job in Udyog Bhawan and take charge as the chairman of the Competition Commission of India, the Supreme Court came out with its adverse comments on the appointment of a bureaucrat as the head a quasi-judicial body. And Chatterjee decided to stay put in his current job till the stalemate is resolved.
Chatterjee is not worried because he is due to retire only in June 2004 and the government has not named his successor in the commerce ministry. So, he need not worry, quite unlike Vinod K Dhall, who was named a member of the CCI earlier this year.
Dhall had no such option as the government had soon named his successor, Man Mohan Kumar Sardana, to take charge as the new company affairs secretary. Dhall had to move over to an office which actually did not exist. He functioned as an officer on special duty until the government notified the constitution of the CCI last month.
Today, Dhall is the only member of the CCI and is busy setting up the office and laying the ground work for its functioning as a body to promote competition and prevent practices that could have an adverse effect on competition. As and when Chatterjee or someone else comes to take charge as the CCI chairman, Dhall should be in a position to present a ready office.
There is yet another reason why Chatterjee should not be worried over these developments. Already, his well-wishers in the government have floated a proposal that if Chatterjee cannot be made the CCI chairman, he should be allowed to continue in the commerce ministry and then considered for the Cabinet Secretary's job.
But the big "problem" is that Chatterjee will retire by the end of June 2004, while the two-year tenure of the current cabinet secretary, Kamal Pande, ends only on October 31, 2004. So, various permutations and combinations are now being worked out to see how Pande could be given some other "prestigious" job with a longer tenure so that Chatterjee's candidature for the cabinet secretary's job can come up for consideration.
The urgency for settling this issue at the earliest is recognised by everybody in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). Chatterjee's continuation in the commerce ministry has meant that Textiles Secretary S B Mohapatra cannot take charge in Udyog Bhavan.
Nor can Fertiliser Secretary Nripen Mishra succeed Mohapatra. Even the shifting of Financial Sector Secretary N S Sisodia within the finance ministry as in-charge of the department of economic affairs has been stalled.
No one knows how and when the controversy over the CCI chairmanship will be resolved. The CCI is one body where the government can be blamed for delays in clearing appointments. The Competition Act, 2002, received the assent of the President on January 13, 2003. By June 2003, it had named the chairman and one member. But what perhaps went wrong was the manner in which it selected these senior bureaucrats.
The appointments gave further credence to the widely-held belief that the government has now taken a policy decision to reward its retiring bureaucrats with the job of a regulator.
Indeed, the Vajpayee government has so far appointed as many as four regulators (power, telecom, insurance and CCI) and in all the cases the choice has fallen on retiring bureaucrats. In two cases, retiring bureaucrats have succeeded non-IAS officers.
Nobody can appreciate this marked preference for IAS officers for regulators' jobs, particularly when the government could benefit immensely from a larger talents pool by widening the choice by including retired judges, professionals and economists.
The bigger problem is the opaque process of appointing the bureaucrats in such key positions. If the vacancy of the chief economic advisor in the finance ministry can be filled through a proper interview of candidates applying for the job in response to a newspaper advertisement, why can't the same system be followed for appointing the heads of regulatory bodies as well?
Even the process of appointing secretaries in different ministries needs to be made more transparent. The role of the cabinet secretary in such appointments has declined considerably and the entire exercise is completed by just two officers in the PMO before the prime minister's approval is obtained.
A more formal structure to finalise such appointments will perhaps help in warding off pressures from powerful and influential lobbies within and outside the government.
The system of appointments made by the government is fast losing credibility even within the bureaucracy. The Vajpayee government should take corrective measures before it is too late.
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