The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the three Aluminum Phosphide Tablets (APT) manufacturers and the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to maintain status quo on the Competition Appellate Tribunal’s (Compat) order, directing them to deposit 9% of the penalty for cartelisation and price manipulation. The tablets are used for preservation of grains that are given to consumers through the public distribution system.
The CCI found the three firms ? Excel Crop Care, United Phosphorous and Sandhya Organic Chemicals ? guilty of collusive bidding and said they violated Section 3(3)(d) of the Competition Act. In April 2012, the commission slapped a fine of Rs 317.91 crore, which included Rs 252.44 crore on United Phosphorus (UPL) and the other two companies ? Excel Crop and Sandhya Organics ? were fined Rs 63.90 crore and Rs 1.57 crore, respectively.
However, the tribunal in October last year stayed the penalty on condition that all the manufacturers would deposit 9% of the penalty amounts, which would be around Rs 7 crore for United Phosphorus, around Rs 3 crore for Excel Crop and Rs 15.7 lakh for Sandhya Organics.
A bench headed by Justice Ranjana Desai had earlier issued notice to CCI and asked the parties to maintain status quo. The CMD of FCI had written to the CCI, alleging that there was a rise in the cost of procurement of ALP due to anti-competitive agreement among the manufacturers.
The FCI said that for the last eight years the manufacturers had quoted identical rates in their tenders for the purchase of ALP tablets and said they had formed a cartel. The corporation further said that it was also possible that one of the manufacturer could be using its dominating position in the market to compel others to quote the same rates.
