The Supreme Court on Monday transferred to Karnataka High Court
all cases alleging malpractices by e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart. The
order came on a plea filed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI), which
sought to consolidate all 24 cases pending across various high courts against
Amazon and Flipkart.
During the hearing, a bench of Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice
Ujjal Bhuyan said if pleadings in some of the transferred petitions were not
completed, the judge seized of the matter would grant reasonable time to
complete the pleadings.
"It will be appropriate if all the petitions which are the
subject matter of this transfer petition are transferred for hearing to the
High Court of Karnataka," news agency PTI quoted the
bench as saying.
Why
did CCI move against Amazon, Flipkart?
The CCI is a statutory
body tasked with enforcing competition law and ensuring a fair and competitive
marketplace in India. It first launched its investigation against Amazon and
Flipkart in January 2020 on a complaint filed by Delhi Vyapar Mahasangh, a traders’
association, alleging that Amazon and Flipkart preferred select sellers to
boost their products’ visibility.
However,
litigation by the e-commerce platforms initially paused the probe. Subsequent
cases filed by affiliated sellers across multiple High Courts including
Karnataka, Delhi and Telangana further delayed progress, with the CCI
highlighting that four years have passed without a conclusive order.
What happened during
Supreme Court hearing?
During the hearing in
Supreme Court, Attorney General R Venkataramani informed the bench that, after
filing of the present petition by CCI, five pleas had been filed in different
high courts.
On this, the top court ordered that
all these petitions be transferred to Karnataka High Court. "If similar
petitions are hereafter instituted in any other high court, the same shall be
also covered by this order," the bench said.