Govt appoints Ravneet Kaur as CCI Chairperson
New Delhi, May 16: Ravneet Kaur will take over as the first full-time woman Chairperson of the Competition Commission of India (CCI), a post that has been lying vacant since October last year.
Kaur, a 1988 Punjab cadre IAS officer, will be the fifth full-time Chairperson of the fair trade regulator, which started functioning in 2009.
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of 59-year-old Kaur, according to an official order dated May 15.
There has been no full-time Chairperson for the competition regulator since Ashok Kumar Gupta demitted office in October 2022. CCI Member Sangeeta Verma has been acting as the Chairperson since October last year.
Currently, Kaur is serving as the Special Chief Secretary at Cooperation Department in Punjab government. She has also served in various other roles in the state.
Kaur has worked at the Centre from 2006 to 2012, including as Joint Secretary in the Department of Financial Services and again during 2015-2019 period.
She served as the Chairman and Managing Director of the India Tourism Development Corporation from July 2017 to July 2019.
The appointment of Kaur will be for a period of five years from the date of assuming charge or till the date of attaining the age of 65 years or until further orders, whichever is the earliest, as per the order.
The Chairperson will get a consolidated salary of Rs 4,50,000 per month without house and car, it added.
Kaur will be taking over the reins of the CCI at a time when various cases related to digital space, including those pertaining to Google and Apple, are being pursued by the regulator.
Also, the watchdog, last week, opened an inquiry against Google for alleged non-compliance with its order passed in October 2022 in relation to its Play Store policies.
Meanwhile, various amendments have been made to the competition law recently.
The amendments seek to promote the ease of doing business as well as enhance the framework to deter entities from indulging in unfair business practices.
Dhanendra Kumar was the first full-time Chairperson of the CCI and the three others were Ashok Chawla, D K Sikri and Ashok Kumar Gupta.
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Absolutely not getting into that subject: Tharoor on Congress' objections on all-party delegations
New Delhi (PTI): Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Monday declined to join issue with some opposition parties, including his own, over the government's choice of MPs from their ranks for all-party delegations to foreign capitals following Operation Sindoor.
"I am absolutely not getting into that subject," he told reporters as the chairman of Parliament's Standing Committee on External Affairs arrived for its meeting, which is being briefed by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on the India-Pakistan military conflict after the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack.
Tharoor has been chosen by the BJP-led government to head one of the seven all-party delegations. His group will visit the US and four other countries.
The names of Tharoor and two other Congress MPs, who are members of other all-party delegations, had not figured among the four suggested by the main opposition party to the government.
The Congress and the Trinamool Congress, which has asked its sole representative Yusuf Pathan to opt out of the delegation, have criticised the government for not seeking their leaderships' consent for its choice of their leaders for the diplomatic outreach.
Accepting the nomination to lead the delegation to the US and four other countries, Tharoor had said in a post on X, "I am honoured by the invitation of the government of India to lead an all-party delegation to five key capitals, to present our nation's point of view on recent events."
"When national interest is involved, and my services are required, I will not be found wanting. Jai Hind!" he had added.
