The commerce ministry is considering replacing regulators for the the legal, medical, chartered accountancy, cost accountancy, and company secretarial professions and replacing them with independent regulators, reported The Hindu.

The reputation of the regulators that are generally run by practising professionals has been hurt by several cases of conflicts of interest, reported the paper:

This hurt the credibility and reputation of these bodies and hampered India’s attempts to secure Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRA) with other countries to enable easier temporary movement of skilled workers and professionals across borders, the sources said.

The paper also included a comment from Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman Manan Kumar Mishra, who dismissed allegations of conflict of interest and objected to a super-regulator being appointed:

He said the BCI involves former Supreme Court judges, chief justices of high courts and top academicians in its legal education and disciplinary committees and questioned, “What can be more superior?”