How lines of role clarity are getting blurred

Successive govts have got Parliament to make laws empowering regulators to play judiciary's role

The question of whether the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) can dictate terms to a quasi-judicial tribunal that presides over enforcement of loan recoveries is making news, with the Gujarat High Court asking how the central bank had the powers to regulate tribunals. That the RBI believed it could dictate terms to a quasi-judicial body is not important. What is important — rather, scary — is how easily role clarity can officially get mistaken in the running of our public institutions.

The foundational blunder that embeds wrong policy choice into the DNA and blurs role clarity is the Presidential Ordinance that