Track2Realty Exclusive: If CCI verdict against DLF is upheld, it will amount to all developers in danger of coming under the jurisdiction of the competition commission. Would the slew of builders across the country very much be amenable to this kind of interpretation?
Some lawyers believe that the CCI judgement could be used as a precedent even in the consumer courts where there is not a dominance and the litigant has been trying to prove that the agreement is one sided. They maintain if DLF is guilty then there is also violation of the provisions of various statutes that the government institutions are actually supposed to administer.
Going by the CCI’s definition of abuse of dominance, HUDA and DTCP, by virtue of being public bodies, had also facilitated this abuse of dominance by providing DLF with the necessary ammunition to act in an illegal, unfair and irrational manner by allotting land and giving licenses, permissions and clearances to the company despite the evidence that the company was taking buyers for a ride.
Since its inception in 2003, the Competition Commission of India has been in the news, and for all the wrong reasons. Members of the judiciary challenged those provisions of the Act that they perceived to be an encroachment into their jurisdiction.
In particular, they questioned the legality of the clauses under which the government could exclude members of the judiciary while considering candidates for heading the CCI. The legal tangle was so complicated that Deepak Chatterjee, who was the Commerce Secretary at the time and was to head the CCI, could not take charge of his new responsibility.
In 2013 the big question in front of realty sector remains unanswered and developers will keep their fingers crossed till the time a final verdict on CCI penalty over DLF and Cement manufacturers comes out in the open. All the stake holders are curious whether the CCI will now regulate the real estate across the board, or the jurisdiction of the CCI only kicks in selective manner.
