S Gurumurthy, a board member of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), wrote to governor Urjit Patel disapproving of the deputy governor Viral Acharya's comment with regards to maintaining regulatory autonomy, The Economic Times reported.
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Gurumurthy told ET that he had objected to “Acharya going public on issues not discussed in or disclosed to the board which met just two days earlier”.
By that same token, he wouldn’t make public details about his communication with the RBI governor, Gurumurthy added.
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The development comes amidst growing rift between the centre and the central bank after the RBI deputy governor Viral Acharya, in a fiery speech, warned that undermining a central bank's independence could be "potentially catastrophic".
“My public position is that the much-talked-about RBI’s independence equals — not more or less than — the independence of its board of directors, and certainly not the independence of RBI officials from the board itself, as is being claimed and even widely discussed,” Gurumurthy told the paper.
Gurumurthy cited the RBI Act to support his stand. “The RBI Act itself says the management of RBI is entrusted to the board, with the governor and the deputies being mandated to exercise management powers subject to board’s directions,” he said.