CCI to have 6 members

NEW DELHI: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) will be fully operational by September 2007. The Commission will now have a maximum of six members, instead of the original 10. The changes have been incorporated from the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Finance.

The CCI, which was constituted in 2002, had run into legal challenges on the selection of chairperson and members. In 2003, the Supreme Court passed an order that no further appointments to the Commission could be made. Currently, CCI has only one Member.

The Competition Act of 2002 provides that CCI should have at least one chairperson and two members.
“After the recommendation of the standing committee, the Commission would now have one chairperson and six members,” a government source said.

The government had introduced the Competition (Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha in March 2006 proposing amendments to the Competition Act. The Bill was referred to the Standing Committee which has recently submitted its recommendations to the government.

The Commission had been functioning as an advocacy body, with no power of direct regulation. With the amendments to the Act, the Commission would now have the power to ensure competition in the free market, in particular, by regulation of anti-competitive behaviour, regulation of cartels and abuse of dominance.

The Act seeks to repeal the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices (MRTP) Act and to dissolve the MRTP Commission. The Commission was mandated in 2003 to eliminate practices having adverse effect on competition, protect the interests of consumers and promote and sustain competition.

Objections had been raised against the structure of CCI which had appointed a bureaucrat rather than a retired chief justice as the chairman of the commission. There was a concern that the structure oversteps the executive domain and infringes upon judicial powers. The SC had questioned how a judicial function could be discharged by a bureaucrat.

priyanka.talwar@timesgroup.com