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The appointment of former Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) chairman Nripendra Misra as principal secretary to the Prime Minister, which led to an amendment of the Trai Act, has also made more job avenues for all former heads and wholetime members of the regulator.
Earlier, they were all barred from any “commercial employment” after serving on the body. Now, however, former chairpersons and wholetime members of Trai can now take up commercial employment with any company but not those in telecommunication services.
This also means, a Trai official, post retirement, is not barred from joining a group with business in telecom services, among others. For instance, the groups which own Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular also have many other businesses where a former Trai official can join, as the person would not be directly employed by the telecom services company.
As the amendment specifically says “telecom services”, former Trai officials might also not be barred from joining companies which provide passive infrastructure to telecom service companies.
However, the government has kept a two-year moratorium. Section 8 of the Trai Act, 1997 (amended in 2000), says: “The chairperson or any wholetime member ceasing to hold office as such, shall be ineligible for further employment under the central government or any state government, and not accept any commercial employment, for a period of one year from the date he ceases to hold such office.” The amended Act says: “The chairperson and the wholetime members shall not, for a period of two years from the date on which they cease to hold office as such, except with the previous approval of the central government, accept— any employment either under the central government or under any state government; or any appointment in any company in the business of telecommunication services.”
A senior consultant working with a global management firm, seeking anonymity, said, “The idea of restricting a regulator or an official who has worked in regulatory services is to ensure against that advantage such companies (which then employ him or her) might get, compared with their competitors. Such loopholes in Acts destroy these.”
Mohammad Chowdhury, partner (telecom, media and technology industry leader), PwC India, said: “Regulations which prevent former Trai staff for joining a telecom operator were intended to protect the industry from any unfair competitive advantage gained by someone having access to confidential industry data.”
