PM has right to choose his Secretary: Arun Jaitley on Nripendra Misra`s appointment

The government asserted that it had done no wrong in bringing a bill to amend the TRAI Act for clearing legal hurdles in the appointment of Nripendra Misra as Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, saying it was based on merit and aimed at bringing parity in all laws pertaining to regulators.

New Delhi: The government on Friday asserted that it had done no wrong in bringing a bill to amend the TRAI Act for clearing legal hurdles in the appointment of Nripendra Misra as Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, saying it was based on merit and aimed at bringing parity in all laws pertaining to regulators.

"We are only pushing this bill based on clear merit. And we are quite confident it will be passed in both the Houses," Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said any Prime Minister has the right to choose his Secretary and the government was only trying to bring parity in all laws relating to regulators by doing so. "Any Prime Minister has the right to choose his secretary. When he chose Nripendraji, then a question arose that he had been a former chairman of TRAI," he said. Jaitley said the country has around 10-12 regulators and all regulators have similar traditions as the rules say that after they demit office, they cannot go back to government. "But in this law, it is written that the regulator cannot be ever re-employed in the government. To bring parity with the other laws, we have brought this amendment.” "If the Prime Minister wants to keep as Secretary a regulator who has retired for eight years then this law should be in parity with the earlier laws. All laws in government regarding regulators must have parity. It is this parity that we have tried to bring in this law," Jaitley said. He charged the Congress of trying to vent out its anger for not being given the post of Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and thus was trying to allege malafide intentions on the government. "If they feel that they do not have a case on the issue of LOP...Then they are trying to vent out their anger here. Then who has a malafide intention, the people of the country must decide," he said.