The
Directive Principles of our constitution suggest that ownership and control of
material resources should be widely distributed and there should be no
concentration of wealth and means of production. With this in mind, the
competition law of India, namely the Monopolistic and Restrictive Trade
Practice Act, 1969, was enacted.
In
many countries and in particular developing countries like India, a large
number of consumers are illiterate and ill-informed and possess limited
purchasing power in an environment, where there is shortage of goods. Very often, one witnesses the spectacle of a
large number of non-essential, sub-standard, adulterated, unsafe and less
useful products being pushed through by unscrupulous traders by means of Unfair
Trade Practices and deceptive methods.
Subtle deception, half truths and misleading omissions inundate the
advertisement media and instead of the consumer being provided with correct, meaningful
and useful information on the products, they often get exposed to fictitious
information which tends to their making wrong buying decisions. Transparent information is missing and needs
to be a goal to be chased.
The
regulatory provisions in the MRTP Act apply to almost every area of business –
production, distribution, pricing, investment, purchasing, packaging,
advertising, sales promotion, mergers, amalgamations and takeover of
undertakings (provisions relating to mergers, amalgamations and take-over’s
were deleted in the MRTP Act by the 1991 amendments to it). They seek to
provide protection and support to consuming public by reducing if not
eliminating from the market Monopolistic, Restrictive and Unfair Trade
Practices. One of the main goals of the
MRTP Act is to encourage fair play and fair deal in the market besides
promoting healthy competition.
Objectives
The
principal objectives sought to be achieved through the MRTP Act are:
·
prevention of
concentration of economic power to the common detriment;
·
control of monopolies;
·
prohibition of
Monopolistic Trade Practices (MTP);
·
prohibition of
Restrictive Trade Practices (RTP);
·
prohibition of Unfair
Trade Practices (UTP).