Competition Commission of India and Sectoral Regulators Study of Conflict Areas and Solutions

Abstract

The era of LPG has resulted in the opening up of the Indian market on accepting loans from IMF and World Bank to open the gates for foreign players to do business through introducing FDI in India. The existence of many market players, such as public players, private players and foreign players in the market leads to a situation where everyone wants maximum profit. This zeal of becoming topmost by maximizing profit often tends to undermine consumer welfare and leads to anti competitive activities. On one hand, there is a fundamental right to trade and on another hand, the State has to secure a social order for equitable distribution of income without concentration of wealth to subserve the common good. newlineThe Competition Commission of India (CCI) exists as a competition law regulatory authority under the Competition Act, 2002 without any peripheral boundary. However, many other sectoral regulatory authorities are also working in India for the efficiency of their particular sector like finance, telecom, insurance, energy, power etc. under the ambit of specific sectoral legislation. But, the existence of other sectoral regulatory authorities in India often causes a possibility for conflict or probable tension between jurisdictions of the CCI and other sectoral regulators because of overlapping of certain statutory provisions in cases of mutual interest to promote and sustain competition. Thus, it embarks the need for the study and identification of conflict areas between CCI and sectoral regulators in India and to suggest some viable solutions and remedies to better address the issue of conflict in a harmonious manner. newline