1. Brahm Dutt vs Union of India
• The petitioner, Brahm Dutt filed a writ petition
in the Supreme Court of India in 2003 alleging
that since the Competition Commission of
India performs judicial functions, the
Chairman of the Commission should be a
judge appointed by Chief Justice of India
rather than bureaucrat appointed by the
Government.
2. Issues brought before the Court-
Whether it was necessary for the chairman to be
a subject matter expert who is not necessarily a
judge or a former judge of the High Court or the
Supreme Court ?
3. Observation laid down by the Supreme Court:
• Based on the doctrine of separation of powers
recognized by the Constitution, The Hon’ble
Supreme Court held that if an expert body is
to be created by the Union Government, it
may be appropriate for the Government to
consider the creation of two separate bodies
that is one with expertise for advisory and
regulatory functions and the other one is for
adjudicatory functions.
4. • During the pendency of the writ petition, two
counter affidavits were filed by the Union of
India claiming that the Government is
proposing to amend the act to allow the
chairman and members to be chosen by the
Committee presided over by the Chief Justice
of India or his nominee. As a result, all issues
about the legality of enactment will be
determined when the act is amended.
• Consequently the writ petition was disposed
off leaving all the pertinent matters
unanswered.
5. • After the enactment of the Competition
(Amendment) Act, 2007 the MRTP Act got
repealed by virtue of Section 66 of the
Competition Act, 2002.
• However, all the pending cases and fresh cases
will lie to the MRTP commission and The
MRTP Commission will continue to exercise
the jurisdiction for two years until the
establishment of CCI.
6. • Then, after the enactment of the Competition
(Amendment) Act, 2009 CCI and COMPAT was
constituted by repealing the MRTPC and all
the cases were transferred to CCI and
appellate jurisdiction was conferred to
COMPAT which is now replaced with NCLAT by
virtue of enactment of Finance Act, 2017.
