Case No. 22/2012. Case: Dr. Deepa Narula C/o Mr. Prashant Narula B-1/602 A, Janak Puri New Delhi- 110058 Vs Taneja Developers and Infrastructures Ltd. 9, Kasturba Gandhi Marg New Delhi-110001. Competition Commision of India
| Case Number | Case No. 22/2012 |
| Judges | Ashok Chawla (Chairman), H.C. Gupta, Member (G), Dr. Geeta Gouri, Member (GG), Anurag Goel, Member (AG), M.L. Tayal, Member (T), Shiv Narayan Dhingra, Member (D) |
| Issue | Competition Act, 2002 - Sections 2, 3(1), 3(2), 4, 4(1), 4(2)(C), 19(1), 19(4), 26(1), 26(2) |
| Judgement Date | September 06, 2012 |
| Court | Competition Commision of India |
Order:
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The instant information has been filed by Dr. Deepa Narula (Informant) u/s 19(1) (a) of the Competition Act, 2002 ('the Act') against M/s. Taneja Developers and Infrastructures Ltd. (Opposite Party) alleging abuse of dominance position by OP. As per the information, the informant is a Non Resident Indian, currently residing in New Delhi. The Opposite Party is a real estate developer engaged in the business of developing and selling residential and commercial properties having its registered office at New Delhi. The informant submitted that relying upon the assurance of the OP to deliver the property within the time bound manner, Informant on 12-04-2006, booked a commercial plot measuring 204 Sq. yards at a price of rupees 29,500/- per Sq. yards in an upcoming real estate project of the OP named as TDI City Mohali. The informant complied with all the demand notices from the OP and made a total payment of Rs. 18,05,400/- till May 2008 against the booking of the plot. The OP had accepted bookings/advance amounts against the said project even though it was still on paper and the necessary approvals for the same had not yet been received. Though an amount of Rs. 12 Lakhs was taken from the informant in April 2006, it was only in January 2008, the approval of TDI City Mohali from the Punjab Government was received. Informant had not been allotted any plot by the OP developer till now even after six years from the date of booking.
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Informant alleged that OP abused its dominant position in the relevant market of Mohali by withholding informant's deposited money and not providing any information regarding development of the project. At the time of booking, OP was the sole developer with unique plan of developing a residential cum commercial project in Mohali. In April 2006 it had assured the Informant to handover possession within 3 years and thereafter, gave a fresh commitment of completion within another 2 years from the date of bhoomi poojan i.e. 22nd January, 2008 but there was no sign of completion of the project even after elapse of further four years since then.
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The Informant also averred that a person desirous of booking a plot with the Opposite Party was required to accept the onerous and unilateral terms and conditions. OP had illegally and arbitrarily withheld the informant's money and thus, his right to access other builders for purchase of commercial plot in the relevant market had been vitiated. The consequence of the arbitrary action of OP resulted in denial of market access to the informant under Section 4(2)(C) of the Competition Act, 2002 and the same constituted abuse of dominant position under section 4(1) of the Competition Act, 2002.
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In order to determine whether an enterprise is abusing its dominant position or not, it is necessary to first determine the relevant market in which that particular enterprise was alleged to be in a dominant position. The second issue would be whether the enterprise abused its dominant position in any manner in that relevant market in terms of Section 4 of the Act.
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The relevant product market in this case would be "services provided by developers of apartments to the consumers" and the relevant geographic market would be geographic area of the district of Mohali, Punjab. Section 2(t) of the Act defines a "relevant product market" as a market comprising of all such products which are...
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