Flipkart moves court against CCI

After the recent move of Amazon, Flipkart is now after the CCI for another move.

Flipkart has filled a writ petition in the Karnataka High Court, Challenging the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI’s) order on probing some of its Business practises. This happened due to the complaint filed against the ecommerce sites by the Delhi Vyapar Mahasangh, a Traders body. The complaint was, based on the ecommerce sites providing deep discounts on online sales of smartphones and sellers. This was a suspicious matter where the CCI came into investigate soon after filling the complaint. At first Amazon was filed against as they have got a interim stay on the probe from the high court. According to the Investigation Flipkart also have the chances of getting a similar Stay order.  

According to the sources, Flipkart’s main contention revolves around Section 19 (3) of the competition Act, which stipulates Six parameters that the competition watchdog needs to consider while evaluating   if a firm has violated the norms. These include creation of barriers to new entrants, driving existing competitors out of the market and improvements in production or distribution of goods or provision of services. Those petition of Flipkart talks about how some of those parameters were not considered by the CCI while ordering for a probe. The High Court did not find any merit in CCI’s order. When the analysis of the order was done it was found that CCI did not follow set norms for such matters. The order says Flipkart submitted that jurisdiction of high court under Article 226 of the constitution was upheld by the supreme court In the Bharthi Airtel case. Trade body CIAT says the petition by Flipkart meant these firms are scared of the Government Investigation.

Summing up to all, e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart are in trouble with the CCI investigation. It cannot be determined on how long this stay will go on. The suspicions on Discounts may or may not affect the sales of the sites in the future.