Command Performance

FOR the ruling party at the centre, the Tenth Finance Commission was very much an in-house affair. The chairman was a Veteran Congress stalwart whose residual, but high, ambitions for holding a major political office were smothered by developments in Uttar Pradesh. He had to be accommodated; he was. Two other slots were filled by an economist and an economic administrator with long official links. And as far as the convention of having a distinguished judicial personality as a member so as to enable the commission to decide upon financial dispensations with dignity and detachment was concerned, the Tenth Finance Commission broke altogether new ground. A member of parliament, currently serving in the Lok Sabha. and a practising lawyer in the Supreme Court and in the Calcutta High Court, was picked for the slot. A formal explanation for the extraordinary choice was not lacking either: the gentleman, the nation was informed, had. once upon a time, served for some months as puisne judge in one of the country's high courts.