| Pub. Date | : July, 2020 |
|---|---|
| Product Name | : The IUP Journal of Law Review |
| Product Type | : Article |
| Product Code | : IJLR072020 |
| Author Name | : Aishwarya Gopakumar, Bongurala Gangadhar and Sheba Rivy Simon |
| Availability | : YES |
| Subject/Domain | : Arts & Humanities |
| Download Format | : PDF Format |
| No. of Pages | : 13 |
The Competition Commission of India (CCI), constituted under the Competition Act, 2002, seeks to prevent practices having adverse effect on competition and sustain competition while promoting the interests of consumers and ensuring freedom of trade. Incidentally, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997 authorizes the regulator to make recommendations to the Department of Telecom (DoT) on measures to enable competition and promote efficiency in the operation of telecommunication services in order to facilitate growth. Such a scenario of legislative and jurisdictional overlap leads to progressing turf wars between the sector-specific regulator and the CCI. An attempt was made by the Bombay High Court and affirmed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, albeit, with no certitude, to settle the jurisdictional overlap. Jurisdictional conflicts raise plaguing issues of duplication of time, forum shopping, and inhibiting investments amidst regulatory tussles. In this background, the paper discusses the pertinent issues, extricates loopholes, analyzes international experience and expertise and proposes a framework model that examines the feasibility of a cross-sectoral regulator for sector-specific regulation of competition in India
The Indian telecom sector is poised to play an instrumental role in the progress and development of the country by facilitating the growth, expansion and upgradation of different sectors of the nation.1 According to recent statistics, India is the world's second-largest telecommunications market with 1.18 billion wireless, 22 million wireline and 600 million internet subscribers, and the country is divided into 23 service areas for retail telephony services.2 The gross revenue from the telecom service sector is roughly