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The Supreme Court has upheld Bombay High Court’s decision to quash a probe initiated by the Competition Commission of India into a complaint of anti-competitive practice filed by Reliance Jio against Airtel, Vodafone and Idea.
The apex court ruled that the CCI probe may have been premature as the issue must first be examined by the sectoral regulator — TRAI.
“Since we are upholding the order of the High Court on the aspect that the CCI could exercise jurisdiction only after proceedings under the TRAI Act had concluded/attained finality, i.e. only after the TRAI returns its findings on the jurisdictional aspects which are mentioned above by us, the ultimate direction given by the High Court quashing the order passed by the CCI is not liable to be interfered with as such an exercise carried out by the CCI was premature,” stated the ruling by two-member bench.
Case file
Reliance Jio had filed a complaint before the Competition Commission of India alleging anticompetitive agreement/cartel having been formed by the three major telecom operators.
According to Jio, the incumbent service providers entered into an anti-competitive agreement to delay provisioning or deny provision of points of interconnect (POI), also known as ‘E1’ in telecom parlance, to Jio during the testing phase and after the commercial launch of services.
POIs are the points where the networks of telecom operators connect. Without sufficient POIs, it is not possible for subscribers of one service provider to make calls to subscribers of another service provider.
MNP requests
RJio also alleged that incumbent players are denying Mobile Number Portability requests of customers who wanted to switch to RJio’s competing service. Following the complaint, the CCI ordered a probe. However, the three incumbent operators filed a plea in the Bombay High Court challenging the CCI’s jurisdiction to conduct the probe.
The High Court upheld the incumbent operators’ plea .
The CCI then lodged a plea with the Supreme Court seeking permission to go ahead with the probe.
‘CCI can probe later’
The Supreme Court in its order said: “Our analysis does not bar the jurisdiction of CCI altogether but only pushes it to a later stage, after the TRAI has undertaken necessary exercise in the first place, which it is more suitable to carry out.”
“Once that exercise is done and there are findings returned by the TRAI which lead to the prima facie conclusion that the incumbent operators have indulged in anti-competitive practices, the CCI can be activated to investigate the matter going by the criteria laid down in the relevant provisions of the Competition Act and take it to its logical conclusion,’’ it added.
Reacting to the SC order, an Airtel spokesperson said, “We welcome the order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court where they have upheld the order of the Bombay High Court.”
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