Supreme Court To Hear Plea By CCI Seeking To Transfer Amazon, Flipkart Cases

The Supreme Court will soon consider the plea filed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) seeking the transfer of writ petitions filed challenging the probe against e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart.

Attorney General for India (AG), R Venkatramani today mentioned before the bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna for hearing the transfer pleas before December 17 as then the Karnataka High Court would be hearing petitions filed by Amazon and its sellers.

The CJI reverted saying that he has already listed the matter for hearing. "I have already marked the matter, please check-up the list, we have already done that"

The CCI has filed the transfer plea in the Apex Court seeking the transfer of 24 writ petitions filed by Amazon/Flipkart and their vendors in various High Courts across the Country to be transferred to itself or the Delhi High Court in order to avoid multiplicity of proceedings.

The said writ petitions stem from CCI's 2020 order under Section 26(1) of the Competition Act directing the Director General to investigate into the allegations against Amazon and Flipkart.

In June 2021, Karnataka High Court's single bench of Justice PS Dinesh Kumar dismissed the writ petitions filed by Amazon and Flipkart against the 2020 CCI order, saying, "it would be unwise to prejudge the issues raised by the petitioners in these writ petitions at this stage and scuttle the investigation".

The single bench judgment was upheld by a division bench of the High Court comprising Justice Satishchandra Sharma and Justice Nataraj Rangaswamy observing "in the concerned opinion of this court by no stretch of imagination the inquiry can be crushed at this stage. If the appellants are not involved in violation of any provisions of the Act of 2002 they should not feel shy in facing inquiry by CCI." Subsequently, in August 2021 the Apex Court also refused to halt the preliminary enquiry ordered by the CCI.

The following CCI probe was challenged by Amazon, Flipkart and also certain vendors by filing petitions in various High Courts, which are now sought to be consolidated and transferred.