Critics of the prime minister's decision to scrap the Planning Commission and create a new advisory body have got it wrong. As an apt analogy, the MRTP Act, 1969 was scrapped and the new Competition Act was adopted in 2002. Being closely associated with the process, CUTS International argued successfully that it was not possible to amend the MRTP Act to update to modern times and an entirely new approach was needed. As a result, the MRTP Commission was closed soon after and the Competition Commission of India (CCI) took shape but with a time lag to dispose of some of the pending cases.
However, the process of establishing the new CCI was kept far away from the premises of the MRTP Commission, so that it could think afresh. Even the old staff of MRTPC was not ipso facto absorbed by CCI, in spite of a demand to that effect. Very few senior intellectual staff did move to CCI, but not as a right. CCI started on a clean slate and hence did not inherit MRTPC's baggage.
Pradeep Mehta Secretary General,
CUTS International Jaipur
CUTS International Jaipur
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