The Department of Company Affairs (DCA) and the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission are at loggerheads over the administrative control of the office of the directorate-general, investigation and registration (DGIR), a statutory body which assists the commission in its investigations.
While the commission is pushing for the DGIRs office to be placed directly under its administrative control and claims to have placed its proposal before the department, the DCA, which controls the directorate, denies having any knowledge of such a proposal.
The office of the DGIR, which used to report to the commission till 1994, was brought under the direct administration of the department through an amendment of the MRTP Act that year.
The commissions main contention is that the DGIR, by adjudicating cases at its own level, is taking over the jurisdiction of the commission.
The commission has already placed a proposal before the finance ministry, seeking the withdrawal of the suo moto powers vested with the directorate-general under the Act.
Speaking to Business Standard, a senior commission official pointed out: The DGIR receives about 800-900 complaints from individuals out of which it files only about 40 cases per year.
The rest of the cases are adjudicated at its level, although the power of adjudication lies solely with the commission under the Act.
Besides, commission officials also allege that the directorate is virtually unaccountable to either the department or the commission.
The commission is believed to have already sounded out the finance ministry on this issue even earlier.
