CCI outsources talent search to National Law School

The National Law School of India University (NLSIU), the country’s premier law school, has started the process of hiring officers for the under-staffed Competition Commission of India (CCI) for a second year. NLSIU issued an advertisement last month inviting applications for 39 officer-level posts in law, economics and financial analysis at the anti-trust watchdog. The last date for submission of applications is 22 January.

CCI started functioning in 2009 with more powers than its predecessor, the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission, to implement India’s nascent anti-trust legislation. But against a sanctioned strength of 190 officers, the regulator has only 94 officers on its rolls looking into 117 cases pending before it. It has been able to issue a solitary order, on housing finance, so far.

“We can’t handle the recruitment on our own and, hence, have decided to give it to NLSIU to handle it for us,” said a senior CCI official, who did not want to be identified. CCI decided to outsource recruitment to NLSIU in November 2009. The first batch of 30 officers was recruited in May this year. “NLSIU is charging us a fee for the recruitment, but it is very nominal. It also gives them a branding opportunity. We are happy with the quality of people that have been recruited by NLSIU. It is a highly respected institute,” said the CCI official.

NLSIU Vice-Chancellor Venkata Rao and Dinesh Dixit, who is in charge of recruitment at CCI, confirmed the partnership. Mint had reported on 9 November 2009 that CCI doesn’t have enough staff to tackle cases. For around two years after it got statutory powers, CCI played only an advisory role as it looked to hire a chairman and five senior members, delaying the start of operations.

CCI had earlier sought the help of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B), to ascertain the nature and proportion of professionals to be hired. IIM-B in 2007-08 recommended that CCI hire lawyers, economists and financial analysts in the ratio 2:2:1. Samir Gandhi, a competition law partner with Economic Law Practice, said: “It is a good idea to have a filter applied by an academic institute.”

“None of the people (in CCI) really have experience on competition law,” said Pallavi Shroff, a senior partner at New Delhi-based law firm Amarchand Mangaldas. “They all have to be trained. People from the European Union, US and UK have been brought in to train them periodically. Everybody is learning.”

India’s competition law regime has two levels. At the first, the competition law body — CCI — decides whether an entity has violated competition law, investigates the entity if it has, and issues an order. At the second level, the Competition Appellate Tribunal, the appellate body, hears appeals from entities that believe CCI has ruled unfairly against them.

The first exam conducted by NLSIU did not have any questions on competition law or the Competition Act, according to a person familiar with the paper, who did not want to be identified. Gandhi of Economic Law Practice said the test is probably generic in nature as specialized talent in this area of law is not available. “I would ideally think that the candidates should have a basic understanding of competition law. But downstream, there is no university teaching this in the country. It might now have become an optional course in some law schools,” he added.

Source: Mint, December 27, 2010