The Competition Appellate Tribunal today adjourned the hearing till January over SAIL’s plea questioning the maintainability of a petition related to supply of rails by the steel maker to the Indian Railways.

A three-member COMPAT Bench headed by its Chairman Justice V.S. Sirpurkar adjourned the matter to the third week of January.

Jindal Steel and Power had approached COMPAT in July against a CCI order, which had closed the private steel producer’s complaint on December 20, 2011, saying that there was nothing wrong in the supply pact between the railways and SAIL.

On this, SAIL had moved a petition before COMPAT challenging the maintainability of JSPL’ petition against the CCI order.

SAIL in its plea has said that the petition filed by JSPL against the order of the Competition Commission of India is non-maintainable. It contended that there was no provision of appeal against closure of such cases by the CCI in the Competition Act.

JSPL had alleged that the CCI completely ignored the exclusive agreement between the Indian Railways and SAIL.

According to JSPL, there was abuse of dominance by SAIL which has denied market access to JSPL by entering into an exclusive supply agreement with the Indian Railways in February 2003.

In its order, CCI had said: “The Commission finds that the MoU between the SAIL and Indian Railways is not anti-competitive and does not lead to foreclose of the market. The Commission closes the case.”

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