This is one case which has surprisingly been closed by the Commission, with the finding that that no case has been made out of the existence of an Anti-Competitive Agreement or of an Abuse of Dominant Position.  However, in my humble opinion, I am not so sure. While the conclusion of the D.G. in the end may have been that there was no Competition Law violation, it was definitely a case which merited a reference to the D.G. for further investigation.

The Informant in the present case claimed that the absorption of new supply of flats despite prices having gone up from Rs. 1,100/- to 4,800/- per square feet and the sale of Application Forms and allotment through lottery suggesting huge demand gave a clear impression of manipulation and restriction of supply and use of monopolistic and dominant status for monopolistic pricing as the the parcel of land for the township was being developed selectively despite the final allotment of land to the respective builders.

The reason the case is so important is because the Commission seems to have not given enough consideration, though it has been mentioned in the Order of the Commission, is that all the Respondents/Opposite Parties except for DLF Universal Ltd., are in fact joint ventures between the West Bengal Housing Board and various individual private entities. Therefore, all the entities have a common partner which definitely gives an impression of the various Respondents possessing the capability to effectively communicate with each other, or at the very least, coordinating with each other per force the directive of the W.B.H.B. Granted, it is a government body which claims as it’s objective to provide affordable housing to the people of West Bengal. But as we all already know, Government Bodies are not innocent when it comes to violation of Competition Law.

 

In my humble opinion, there exists a prima-facie case to be investigated on the violation of Section 3(3)(a) and Section 3(3)(b) of the Act and to be frank, it is unfortunate that the Commission chose to close the case.