CCI vs TRAI

Abstract

Telecommunication in India saw a tremendous boost after liberalization. Communication service in India has a strong and healthy competition and this is the service which will continue to rise in future as well as this service has brought the world so close that now you can contact anyone within seconds without paying high charges unlike the scenario which was present before liberalization that if you want to contact someone who have to wait for long hours and the price of communication at that time was very high. After liberalization there has been increase in the number of telecom service providers after liberalization and a lot of reforms have also taken place. The reforms have proven to be beneficial for the consumers as it has increased the competition. The competitive environment has led to conflict between service providers which includes predatory pricing. In order to make sure fair competition in this sector both the TRAI and CCI should work jointly with each other. The Competition Commission should focus that competition prevails in general and also look and bring measures to curb the anti competitive practices in various sectors of the market. In the telecommunication sector there have been cases where the cases of cartelization. The long distance segment of telecommunication was professed of cartel formations by the ministers of the telecommunication in the year 2005. Anti competitive agreements and abuse of dominant position are the major distress for the commission. A practice is adopted by countries where a regulator is appointed and the regulation of the regulator are similar to that of the competition commission. Regulation in telecom sector is in the hands of TRAI and DoT and the fact is that it is not known that how much attention is given to the competition however sec 11 of the TRAI Act talk about promoting fair competition. The annual reports, visions, consultation paper, recommendation talks about protecting the interest of the consumer and growth in this sector but it fails to talk about the competition practices. Section 18 of the Competition Act 2002 entrusts a duty on the commission to encourage fair competition and protecting the interest of participants. Competition Commission of India control and curb the illegal practices or the anti competitive practices on the other promote competition and protect the interest of the consumers. Section 11 of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997 talks about the objectives. The objective of the TRAI Act is to promote the telecom industry by ensuring competition and optimum utilization of the telecommunication services. The two statues talk about the same objective i.e. fair competition, protection of the interest of the participants and the consumers and building up an environment which promotes healthy competition. However the 2 legislation imbricate and this has led to conflicts in the jurisdiction