The government today appointed Commerce Secretary Dipak Chatterjee as chairman of the Competition Commission of India.
Vinod Dhall, secretary in the department of company affairs, was appointed member, administration, of the commission.
M K Sardana, special secretary in the power ministry, will replace Dhall in the department of company affairs.
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Chatterjee and Dhall, both from the 1966 batch of the IAS, have been appointed for five years each.
Official sources said Chatterjee, from the West Bengal cadre, would be designated as chairman of the Competition Commission of India from September 16, two days after the Cancun ministerial meeting of the WTO is scheduled to end.
The appointment order, however, does not specify when Dhall, who belongs to the Madhya Pradesh cadre, will take over. That will depend on certain issues, like an office for the commission, being sorted out.
The commission is mandated to have a chairman and 10 members, apart from Benches. The other members will be appointed in due course.
Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley, who has worked with both Chatterjee and Dhall, had recommended four names for the competition panel.
The other two contenders were Textiles Secretary S B Mohapatra and Planning Commission Secretary N K Sinha. Dhall is scheduled to retire in February and Chatterjee at the end of June 2004.