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Regstreet Law Advisors Sumit Agrawal M. S. Sahoo
Sumit Agrawal (Managing Partner, Regstreet Law Advisors, and former Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)) and Dr. M. S. Sahoo (Former Chairperson, Insolvency & Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) and former Whole-time Member, SEBI), have written a full page piece in The New Indian Express, to make a compelling case for extending the institutional logic of the Tribunals Reforms Act (TRA) to India’s economic regulators.
The TRA, effective August 25, 2026, separates the government’s role in framing service conditions from a National Tribunals Commission’s (NTC) role in selection and performance oversight of members of Appellate Tribunals that hears appeals against the regulators. The authors argue this separation matters even more for regulators like SEBI, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India and electricity commissions – bodies that interact with the government and regulated entities every single day, not episodically like tribunals.
Ministerial influence today runs through multiple channels – appointments, removals, service conditions, prior approval of regulations, and powers to supersede boards – producing what the authors call a “fragmented oversight architecture.”
Their proposed fix: a National Regulatory Commission (NRC), modelled on the NTC, to handle transparent selection of chairpersons/members and periodic, published performance assessments – while government continues to set the broader policy framework. Crucially, they caution that merely shifting powers to another ministry won’t guarantee independence; genuine institutional insulation, not a change of label, is the goal.
A timely and important read on regulatory governance reform in India.
Full article is available at https://lnkd.in/dvp9rz5N