The Supreme Court on Wednesday admitted the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) appeal against the Competition Appellate Tribunal (COMPAT) in the Jindal Steel vs. SAIL matter.

The original case was between Jindal Steel (Jindal) and Steel Authority of India (SAIL)-two of India's largest steel manufacturers. It involved a certain agreement for railway equipment between the Indian Railways and SAIL, which was allegedly an anti-competitive agreement and amounted to an abuse of dominance by SAIL. Jindal approached the CCI to investigate the anti-competitive practices of SAIL and Indian Railways.

The Commission decided that there was a prima facie case for investigation and recommended that the Director General (DG) commence an investigation. Before the DG could commence its investigation, SAIL moved the COMPAT appealing against the prima facie order of the Commission, which recommended the commencement of an investigation.

On Wednesday, a 3 member bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, S.H. Kapadia heard the arguments of the Solicitor General of India, Gopal Subramanium who argued for the CCI and was assisted by ELP’s Delhi Litigation Partner Tarun Gulati, Competition Partner Samir Gandhi and Senior Associate Neil Hildreth.

Samir Gandhi said “The CCI has already implemented the Order of the COMPAT and given both SAIL and Jindal the opportunity to be heard. However the importance of this decision is wide-ranging since it will allow the Supreme Court the chance to analyze whether the CCI is obliged to provide parties a right to be heard even before ordering an investigation into whether their conduct is anti-competitive. Globally, competition authorities such as the EU have taken the view that they need not provide parties with a right to be heard at the very preliminary of deciding whether a prima facie case exists and is fit for further investigation-the rationale being that such a preliminary determination does not affect the rights of parties.

The court has listed the case for hearing on July 22.