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The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has disposed of 600 out of 750 anti-trust cases, that is about 80 per cent of the total cases, its Chairman, D K Sikri, said on Friday.
“Of the information filed, now 80 per cent is not subject to any investigation and only 20 per cent cases go through the investigation stage,” Sikri said in his address at an Assocham conference on ‘Competition Law: Opportunities & challenges in India.’
The head of the fair trade regulator said that unlike in the past when it undertook the investigation, in more than 50 per cent of the cases or information filed with the Commission, it is now applying rigours of enquiry very strongly.
Moreover, in order to increase awareness on competition law, the CCI in the last six months, has organised 40 events for all stakeholders and people to understand the scope of the law and the remedies it offers.
“We at the Commission are also receiving information from far-off places and from businesses that we can’t imagine sitting here. We recently had a complaint filed by a cable operator in a remote district of Rajasthan against a well-known music company,” Sikri added.
The CCI chief also said that the competition law is also helpful to the government when it comes to making public procurements.
“Cases of collusive bidding as well as cartelisation have come to the Commission from various departments of the government, state governments and public sector enterprises, they have been investigated,” he added.
Stating that there is more awareness now about competitive bidding among enterprises as well as government departments, Sikri said, “While evaluating the bids they have been closely looking at the fact whether the bidders are independent and they are not under the same management, mind you this was not the case earlier and this was not appreciated in the past.”
“Similarly, they are complaining if the prices quoted by the bidders are identical, this behaviour earlier was given not much consideration because the public enterprises would hold negotiation treating them all as L1 but now the same behaviour is being questioned and the government departments are genuinely looking for an L1 bidder who offers really a truly competitive price,” he added.
He said that this change has the potential to bring about considerable savings in the public procurement by the government.
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