Centre appoints three members to CCI to reduce lag in decision making

Centre has on Tuesday appointed three new members to the Competition Commission of India (CCI), a timely move that will ensure there are no lags in decision making at the anti-trust regulator. 

The three members include Anil Agrawal, former Director General of Police and former Additional Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade; Deepak Anurag, former Additional Deputy Comptroller and Auditor General of India; and independent lawyer Sweta Kakkad who was previously the Interim Chief Compliance Officer at Whatsapp.  

With these appointments, the CCI will now have four members, including Chairperson Ravneet Kaur.  

According to sources, Agrawal and Kakkad will take the oath for appointment later today while Anurag is expected to join by next week.   

With two members joining office immediately, the CCI will continue to have a three member quorum, which is essential for taking decisions on approvals for mergers and combinations as well as taking up investigation reports.  

“It is a welcome move that the appointments have been announced and the members are joining as this will ensure that the problem of a lack of quorum does not recur,” noted Vinod Dhall, former Chairman, CCI.  

Two former members of the CCI - Bhagwant Singh Bishnoi and Sangeeta Verma retired in late August and on September 17 respectively and there were concerns that the regulator would be left with just the Chairperson, which could potentially stall its work.  

The Centre had in January this year invited applications for three members to the CCI, the due date for which was extended till May 1. However, there had been no announcement on the appointment of members and there were worries that the CCI could again fall into the situation when it did not have a full time chief for nearly seven months after its former chairman Ashok Kumar Gupta demitted office in October 2022.