Over 140 cases pending with CCI; 64 more than a year-old

More than 140 cases of alleged unfair business practices are believed to be pending with the Competition Commission, while nearly one-fourth of them are awaiting a decision for more than a year.
Certain cases, pending for over a year with the Competition Commission of India (CCI) are before the courts and proceedings have been stayed in some of them.
"Many cases involve multiple and complicated issues and voluminous documents are received in the CCI for examination," a Parliamentary panel report said.
As on September 30, 2014, total pendency of cases before the CCI was 146, out of which 64 cases were more than one year old, the report said.

At the same time, the Competition Appellate Tribunal, which hears appeals against the CCI rulings, had 80 cases pending unresolved with it, of which 28 cases are more than one year old.
Apart from this, the tribunal had 72 cases left for disposal out of the total 1,825 cases it had inherited from the erstwhile MRTP Commission, as on September 30, 2014.

The parliamentary panel has noted that CCI in order to be an effective anti-trust regulator "should strengthen its market surveillance mechanism so as to identify any market distortionary activities and suo moto initiate action against the concerned parties".

The panel had further recommended that the fair trade watchdog while disposing of cases relating to price rigging, abuse of dominance and cartelisation could adopt a consumer-welfare approach, "since consumers are more of than not, at the receiving end of any anti-competitive practice".
The Competition Appellate Tribunal was established on October 14, 2003 under the Competition Act, 2002, with powers to entertain appeals against directions or decisions of CCI, and to adjudicate on claim form compensation that may arise from the findings of CCI and itself.
The Delhi-based tribunal had become functional in 2009.