MUMBAI: Raghuram Rajan , the immediate predecessor to outgoing RBI governor Urjit Patel , on Monday said that “an act of resignation” by a government-appointed public servant was “a note of protest” and the ultimate weapon for such appointees, and warned that Indians should be concerned since a robust institutional structure is important for the growth and development of the country.Rajan had quit after completing his three-year term as RBI governor in September 2016 when it was clear that the BJP-led government will not offer him another term. “I think, this (the abrupt resignation of Patel) is something that all Indians should be concerned about because the strength of our institutions is really important for our growth, sustainable growth and equity in the economy,” Rajan told PTI.Rajan also called Patel’s resignation a “statement of dissent” and said the government should be “very careful in dealing with it so that the autonomy of the institution as well as its credibility is preserved”. Rajan also said that it would be useful to look into the circumstances that led to Patel’s resignation and “the kind of dialogue that has taken place over the last few weeks”, and ask if there was anything that could have prompted such a move by the RBI governor. “We should go into the details as to why there was impasse, which forced this ultimate decision,” Rajan said.One of the sore points between the government and the RBI was that the former wanted to make the central bank’s board an operational body rather than the current structure of it being an entity that would advise the bank and set its long-term strategy. This change also attracted sharp criticism from Rajan, a former chief economist of the IMF and an economic adviser to the Indian government. He said that for the RBI board to become an operational one, that would make operational decisions “an extreme” change. “I think, the move towards giving the board more operational authority would impinge on the professional management to regulate and supervise (the bank)... and if that is to be the case, then the board should be composed of professionals, as opposed to the larger public,” Rajan, currently a professor at the University of Chicago ’s Booth School of Business, told a news channel.The government had appointed RSS ideologue S Gurumurthy and co-operative banking sector expert S K Marathe to the RBI board.