Supreme Court denies special treatment to CCI over Amazon, Flipkart probe, refuses to transfer petitions | Company Business News-OxBig News Network

The Supreme Court has clarified to the Competition Commission of India that it will “not get special treatment” as the top court refuses to transfer the writ petitions filed in several High Courts challenging its antitrust probe against e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart.

The Supreme Court has suggested that all petitions be consolidated with a single judge according to the Karnataka High Court rules instead of being brought to the top court.

The bench, headed by Justice Abhay Oka, said, “Only because some litigant is to be given special treatment and bypass the rules, we can’t place it directly before the division bench,” LiveLaw reported.

Justice Oka also stated that nobody should receive special treatment by surpassing one step of the litigation process.

CCI’s plea

The Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) plea had requested the Supreme Court to combine the 24 writ petitions by various sellers of Amazon and Flipkart filed in Karnataka, Punjab and Haryana, Delhi, Madras, Allahabad, and Telangana High Courts to either the SC or the Delhi High Court. As per CCI, having multiple cases in several High Courts will lead to conflicting judgements.

“We will be accepting a very dangerous argument that because in one High Court, as per rules, the matter is heard by a single judge, only because in other High Court it is heard by division bench it should come to that High Court,” Justice Oka said.

According to the Supreme Court, in several similar situations in the past, it has directed such cases to the leading High Court, where they progressed as per the rules. The final order passed by the single judge can then be appealed before the division bench or Supreme Court. However, directly approaching SC for such cases will not be right.

Attorney General (AG) R Venkataramani was appearing for the antitrust body. According to Venkataramani, the CCI made this request as several High Courts have given stay orders for the antitrust probe. Due to this, the CCI is not able to complete the probe.