News: Change of Guard at CCI

On January 7th Devender Kumar Sikri was appointed the Chairman of the Competition Commission of India (CCI), a body whose primary responsibility is to ensure the effective enforcement of the Competition Act, 2002 and to keep a check on anti-competitive activities. He is set to replace Mr. Ashok Chawla, whose four year term ended on the 7th of January [1]. His appointment came amidst speculation that the Modi Government may chose S L Bunker as an acting Chairman. However, his appointment has now set rest to such conjectures [2]. Prior to taking of this decision, DIPP secretary Amitabh Kant was the top name which was recommended for the post [3]. Mr Sikri’s tenure would last for around two and a half years, for he would turn 65.

Mr. Devender Kumar Sikri (DK Sikri), is a former Gujarat state cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer from the batch of 1975 and has been an adept bureaucrat who has held designations at Central and State level. He had held the posts of Secretary in Ministry of Women and Child Development, Registrar General of Census and Collector of Rajkot and Jamnagar among others [4].

His antecedent, Mr. Ashok Chawla is a former IAS officer also from the Gujarat cadre. He has been a seasoned bureaucrat with an experience of almost 40 years. Appointed in the year 2011, he served as the CCI chairman for 4 years. He was the second person to hold the post of the CCI chairman after it was established in 2003.[7].

When Mr. Chawla took over, he made visible efforts to sensitise the concerned stakeholders to adopt competitive practices and to encourage fair play. Further, he adopted a carrot and stick approach towards the people and enterprises that were found to be violating the competition norms- be it in real estate, aviation or financial markets, etc [9]. This carrot and stick approach becomes visible by the statistics which show in the single year of 2015, the body has imposed a total penalty amounting to Rs. 1500 crores on the violators [10]. Similarly, in 2015, the CCI also came down upon the app-based cab operators as well as e-commerce players alleging them of being indulged in anti-competitive practices. In the year 2015, he came into news when he stated that imposition of cap on airfares amounts to the violation of competition norms [11].

Before leaving, Mr. Chawla weighed in on the challenges facing the regulatory body. He stated that a few areas are lacking at the CCI face challenges like understaffing. He also discussed some measures that the CCI was working on like amending its Merger & Acquisition norms which will it more business friendly [12]. In his farewell speech, he said that implementing a competition regime is akin to a building a house only half and that at the CCI, “the structure of the house is ready. What is now required to be done is to paint, polish and furnish it, so that it becomes a vibrant regulator.” According to him, the six and a half-year-old body would take at least another 5 years to become sprightly [15].

The following news update was authored by Priya Garg, who is a second year student at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences.