Entities make concerted attempts to stonewall CCI work: Chawla

He is superannuating next month after being the CCI Chairman since October 2011

Amid rising instances of entities seeking legal recourse against CCI orders, the regulatory body's chief Ashok Chawla says there is a concerted attempt to stonewall its actions through writ petitions in high courts.

Even though such cases get settled at the end of the day, a lot of time, energy and resources of the regulator are wasted in fighting them, Chawla said.

In recent times, there have been rising instances of entities concerned moving high courts, especially questioning the jurisdiction of the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

Chawla, who is superannuating next month after being the CCI Chairman since October 2011, said the regulator has been facing an external issue for the past year-and-a-half.

"There has been in my view, concerted attempt to try to stonewall the operation of the Commission by going with writ petitions to various high courts," he told PTI in an interview.

While the architecture of the Competition Act does not give any role to high courts, there is a writ jurisdiction available to the stakeholders and they try to use that to make out a case of miscarriage of justice in terms of the procedures or processes, he said.

According to him, while those cases do get settled at the end of the day, "they take time (while) energy and resources are wasted in fighting a lot of legal battles to ensure that the process comes back on track and reaches some conclusion, whatever be that conclusion".

Under the Act, pleas against CCI rulings can be made before the Competition Appellate Tribunal (Compat) and of late, there has been increasing number of appeal before it.

Chawla also said that of late, even the appellate tribunal, in its appreciation of matters before it, has been focusing substantially on procedural and technical issues.

"We welcome that and we will naturally address issues which need to be addressed within the Commission but the end result is that issues on substantiative points of law or issues on merit don't get decided easily. It takes time," Chawla added.