Govt appoints Ravneet Kaur as CCI Chairperson

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.