But against a sanctioned strength of 190 officers, the regulator has only 94 officers on its rolls looking into 117 cases pending before it. It has been able to issue a solitary order, on housing finance, so far. "We can't handle the recruitment on our own and, hence, have decided to give it to NLSIU to handle it for us," said a senior CCI official, who did not want to be identified. CCI decided to outsource recruitment to NLSIU in November 2009. The first batch of 30 officers was recruited in May this year.

"NLSIU is charging us a fee for the recruitment, but it is very nominal. It also gives them a branding opportunity. We are happy with the quality of people that have been recruited by NLSIU. It is a highly respected institute," said the CCI official. NLSIU vice-chancellor Venkata Rao and Dinesh Dixit, who is in charge of recruitment at CCI, confirmed the partnership. CCI had earlier sought the help of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B), to ascertain the nature and proportion of professionals to be hired. IIM-B in 2007-08 recommended that CCI hire lawyers, economists and financial analysts in the ratio 2:2:1.

Samir Gandhi, a competition law partner with Economic Law Practice, said: "It is a good idea to have a filter applied by an academic institute." "None of the people (in CCI) really have experience on competition law," said Pallavi Shroff, a senior partner at New Delhi-based law firm Amarchand Mangaldas. "They all have to be trained. People from the European Union, United States of America and United Kingdom have been brought in to train them periodically. Everybody is learning." India's competition law regime has two levels. At the first, the competition law body-CCI-decides whether an entity has violated competition law, investigates the entity if it has, and issues an order. At the second level, the Competition Appellate Tribunal, the appellate body, hears appeals from entities that believe CCI has ruled unfairly against them. The first exam conducted by NLSIU did not have any questions on competition law or the Competition Act, according to a person familiar with the paper, who did not want to be identified. Gandhi of Economic Law Practice said the test is probably generic in nature as specialized talent in this area of law is not available. "I would ideally think that the candidates should have a basic understanding of competition law. But downstream, there is no university teaching this in the country. It might now have become an optional course in some law schools," he added.