National Competition Policy pending more than one year

Chennai:

The National Competition Policy is pending more than a year due to lack of enthusiasm among the state governments, according to Competition Commission of India member R Prasad.

Addressing a conference on ‘Competition law and its impact on Industry’ here on Wednesday, Prasad said that that if the National Competition Policy is implemented it would change the market philosophy and behavior of the government towards business.

The policy was initially drafted in 2007 as part of planning commission working group and was finalized in 2011.

Interestingly, the delegates at the conference also expressed concern over the lack of legislation in India against misleading advertisements. Prasad accepted that there is lack of legislation against misleading advertisement and stressed the need for enactment of law to cover unfair trade practices.

“There is no law against unfair trade practices. Any person can place misleading advertisement and could go scot free,” said Prasad.

He also stressed for the need for a competition law which could have the status of criminal procedure code. He also said that Competition Commission of India is looking into the case filed against state owned Arasu Cable TV Corporation for becoming a monopoly in conditional access system. Prasad said that a report from director general has come and within couple of months an order will be passed.

He also said that CCI is investigating actor-director Kamal Haasan’s complaint against Tamil Nadu theatre owners for allegedly restricting release of his film ‘Vishwaroopam.’

“The complaint by Kamal Haasan is being referred to Director General (DG) for investigation,” he said. 

Chairman of FICCI Tamil nadu State council M Rafeeque Ahmed, former Union revenue secretary M R Sivaraman and founder partner PSA Legal Counsellors New Delhi and Chennai Priti Suri also spoke on the occasion.