Questions without answers

Sourav Ganguly’s controversy-ridden ascension as BCCI President and the appointment of dynasts and politically connected people to other key positions in the sports body means Indian cricket administration is back to where it was in 2013, when the Supreme Court had stepped in and appointed a Committee of Administrators headed by Vinod Rai. It is possible to ask: What did the interregnum under Mr Rai achieve? 

A disclaimer first: Mr Rai wrote the Foreword to my book India’s Coal Story. It is an incisive piece, he had carried forward those arguments in his own book  Not Just an Accountant. He argued that the auditor had the right to question how policy should be implemented. Mr Rai’s Rethinking Good Governance expands that theme to other regulatory institutions including cricket and, more broadly, sports administration. “Nation building through good governance has to (include) the building of institutions empowered to question and monitor every action of the government organisations and persons in authority”. 

Mr Rai is right, but he doesn’t offer any alternatives. For instance, while he set up a CEO and a professional management structure in BCCI, the connection between political dynasties and cricket has been comprehensively re-established. How would such an institution, even if professionally managed, be able to criticise “persons in authority”. Democracy doesn’t always offer much space for a separation of politics and administration, much as courts and often the public may bay for it. 

It is a theme that often assails one reading his book since he stops short of exploring this issue. He does make some candid observations, however. About the role of the Election Commission of India (ECI), he makes clear that the recent controversy among the Election Commissioners on “complaints of violation of the Model Code of Conduct against the PM and the BJP President” in the 2019 general elections has not helped. “Admittedly while the ECI aspires for unanimous decisions, it rules provide for majority ruling…these conventions need to be respected. Notings (sic) exchanged within the ECI, and among the commissioners, are well documented. Having such a record maintains the credibility of the institution”. 

Mr Rai is obviously well placed to conduct this survey of the regulatory bodies including the Reserve Bank of India, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), Central Bureau of Investigation and the Central Vigilance Commission, besides Parliament and the Supreme Court. He has worked with many of these institutions as secretary, department of financial services in the union finance ministry, capping it with a term as the most famous Comptroller and Auditor General of India. He has seen them all from extremely close quarters and this gives him a unique advantage.

For instance, Mr Rai was the secretary, department of financial services when Y V Reddy was the Governor of RBI and had ringside view of the relations between Dr Reddy and finance minister P Chidambaram. He says the government planned to allow foreign direct investment in private banks in 2004. Mr Chidambaram told Dr Reddy “decisions could not be altered based on the personal convictions of successive governors…Not being in agreement [about FDI in banks] Reddy called up the then secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Dr Rakesh Mohan, and offered to get himself admitted to a hospital under the pretext of ill health and subsequently quit the post to facilitate the appointment of a new governor by the government”. The former CAG notes that the compromise came after the Budget 2005 announced the measure, and “the road map was planned by Reddy in such a way that by the time it would be implemented, he would have retired from the post of governor”.  

He also notes that the rapid exit of Governors Raghuram Rajan and Urjit Patel in recent years “are not beneficial to the economy as the consistency of policy formulation takes on a short-term approach”. He suggests a five-year term for the governor would be an evidence of a balanced approach but stops short of criticising the government for not ensuring it. “We have seen that governors have expressed their concern.. and yet have remained effective in their posts…the top (political) leadership has been found to be receptive to such concerns, except on a few occasions when political considerations might have overridden such advice”.  

But there are few examples of these in other regulatory bodies. Rai has recounted in detail each flashpoint between the different bodies and the political executive but has often stopped short of taking a clear position on who is to blame, as in the case of BCCI drama. In the analysis of the Supreme Court, he examines the complaints about corruption in the judiciary;  but does not prescribe solutions beyond the truism “Trust cannot be commanded. It has to be earned.” 

Rethinking Good Governance: Holding to Account India's Public Institutions

Vinod Rai

Rupa Publications

Page 272, Rs 595