Competition law in motion: NCLAT's Grasim reversal and the April–May 2026 CCI enforcement cycle

The first half of 2026 has produced a substantial cycle of competition-law decisions across the CCI's investigation, adjudication, and appellate stages. Read individually, each disposition addresses a specific question — dominance in the viscose staple fibre market, vertical restraints in the broiler-breeder sector, bid-rigging in State procurement, market definition in the aviation cancellation-charges context, and the jurisdictional reach of the Competition Act against ride-hailing aggregators. Read together, the cycle discloses the institutional posture and procedural architecture within which competition-law practice now operates.

The Grasim reversal: NCLAT, 5 May 2026

The most consequential disposition of the cycle is the NCLAT's order of 5 May 2026 setting aside the CCI's ₹301.6 crore penalty on Grasim Industries Limited — an Aditya Birla Group entity — in a matter concerning alleged dominance in the viscose staple fibre market.

The NCLAT's reversal turned on a procedural ground that carries doctrinal content. The appellate tribunal held that the CCI had failed to give Grasim Industries notice of its disagreement with certain findings of the Director General. The DG had produced a report at the investigation stage; the CCI, in its final order, had differed from the DG on certain points. The NCLAT held that, where the CCI proposes to differ from the DG's findings, it is obligated to give the affected party an opportunity to be heard on the points of disagreement before passing a final order.

The doctrinal proposition has a clear source — the principles of natural justice as applied to administrative adjudication — but its restatement in the specific Grasim context produces an operational rule: the CCI must, at the post-DG stage, identify the points on which it proposes to differ from the DG, communicate those points to the affected party, and provide an opportunity to be heard before the final order.

The NCLAT directed that the CCI conduct fresh proceedings, with the opportunity to be heard provided, and decide the matter expeditiously in a time-bound manner. The merits question — dominance in the VSF market — and the penalty quantum were not resolved on appeal; they return to the CCI for fresh determination, with the procedural defect cured.

For the broader competition-law bar, the Grasim reversal supplies an operational template. Where the CCI's final order differs from the DG's findings, the affected party may have a procedural defence — and an appellate route — based on the failure to provide the Grasim opportunity.

The investigation stage: Venkateshwara Hatcheries, 1 April 2026

At the investigation stage, the CCI on 1 April 2026 directed the Director General to investigate alleged abuse of dominance and anti-competitive vertical restraints against the Venkateshwara Hatcheries Group.

The case involved allegations that the VH Group had imposed restrictive conditions on contract breeders through Broiler Breeder Agreements and Layer Breeder Agreements. The conditions, on the complainant's case, included prohibitions on contract breeders from dealing with competing breeds and restrictions on the sale of chicks and hatching eggs to third parties.

The doctrinal frame is the conventional vertical-restraint architecture. Vertical agreements — between participants at different levels of the production or distribution chain — fall within Section 3 of the Competition Act, with the question being whether the agreement causes or is likely to cause an appreciable adverse effect on competition. Exclusivity clauses in upstream-downstream contracts attract scrutiny where they foreclose access to downstream markets or restrict downstream operators' ability to deal with competing upstream suppliers.

The CCI's order — issued at the prima facie stage — is not a finding on the merits. It is a direction that the DG investigate, with the merits case to be determined after the DG's report is in.

For the contract-breeding sector, the message is that exclusivity arrangements of the kind alleged will attract scrutiny. The cost of operating a vertical contract architecture with exclusivity is now the procedural and reputational cost of CCI investigation, even before any finding of liability.

The bid-rigging order: seventeen contractors, 7 April 2026

The most substantial April 2026 enforcement disposition was the CCI's order of 7 April 2026 holding seventeen electrical contractors liable for bid-rigging and collusive bidding in tenders floated by the Assam Police Housing Corporation Limited. The tenders concerned internal and external electrification works across police stations in Assam.

The doctrinal frame is Section 3(3)(d) of the Competition Act, which proscribes agreements that "directly or indirectly result in bid rigging or collusive bidding." The provision creates a presumption of appreciable adverse effect on competition for agreements falling within the listed categories — including bid-rigging — and shifts the evidentiary burden to the parties to rebut.

The enforcement architecture in bid-rigging matters is well-developed at the CCI; the Assam Police Housing matter sits within the established frame. The penalty calculation under Section 27 applies the established proportionality factors, with the magnitude of the affected procurement, the role of each participant, and the conduct of the proceedings each contributing to the quantum.

For the construction and contracting sector, the implication is that the CCI's enforcement attention has continued to expand into State procurement, with State agencies serving — as in the Assam Police Housing matter — as the procurement entity whose tenders disclose the collusion pattern.

The Indigo / Air India closure: market definition revisited

The CCI's recent closure of the Indigo / Air India cancellation-charges probe — under Section 26(2), on the basis of no prima facie case — supplies a doctrinal counterpoint to the findings in the Venkateshwara Hatcheries and Assam Police Housing matters.

The question — whether the standardisation of cancellation charges across the two carriers, which together hold approximately 90 per cent of the domestic aviation market, amounts to an anti-competitive understanding — was resolved in the negative. The reasoning rested on three pillars: the transparency of the charge structure (public disclosure across the industry); the uniformity flowing from the regulatory architecture (DGCA's role in standardising cancellation policy); and the absence of evidence of coordination between the carriers in the sense that Section 3(3) requires.

The disposition is doctrinally important because it engages the practical question of how a competition regulator should treat industries with substantial market concentration where the conduct under examination is, on the record, a function of regulatory architecture rather than of horizontal coordination.

The jurisdictional boundary: Roppen / Rapido

The earlier disposition in Roppen / Rapido — closed under Section 26(2) in Case No. 31 of 2025 by order of 17 March 2026 — addresses the jurisdictional boundary between the Competition Act and the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, in the context of ride-hailing aggregator regulation. The holding is that the Motor Vehicles Act has jurisdiction over the transport-regulation questions, with the Competition Act's reach confined to the competition-law dimensions properly so called.

The doctrinal architecture matters because the ride-hailing space — and the broader digital-aggregator space — produces recurring jurisdictional boundary questions, with the Competition Act, the IT Rules, the consumer-protection architecture, and sector-specific regulation each having potential application.

The institutional posture, drawn together

Read together, the cycle discloses several features of the CCI and NCLAT's institutional posture at mid-2026.

Procedural rigour at the appellate stage. The Grasim reversal signals that the NCLAT will engage with procedural defects in CCI orders — including the failure to provide the opportunity to be heard on points of differ-from-DG findings. The appellate posture is not a substitution on the merits; it is procedural discipline at the adjudication stage.

Investigative reach across sectors. The Venkateshwara Hatcheries and Assam Police Housing matters — taken together — show the CCI's investigative reach extending into traditional vertical-restraint and bid-rigging matters, with sectoral coverage extending into agriculture-adjacent contracting and State procurement.

Market structure and the regulatory-architecture argument. The Indigo / Air India closure shows the CCI's engagement with market definition where the record discloses regulatory uniformity rather than horizontal coordination — closure is available even where structural concentration is high.

Jurisdictional discipline. The Roppen / Rapido disposition shows the CCI's willingness to draw the jurisdictional boundary against cases that, on the record, fall within the reach of sector-specific regulation rather than the Competition Act.

What practitioners should be doing

For respondents in CCI proceedings. Build the procedural record at the post-DG stage. Where the CCI proposes to differ from the DG, the Grasim opportunity is real and not merely formal. The record at that stage will support — or undermine — a subsequent appellate challenge.

For complainants. The case at the prima facie stage carries weight. The Venkateshwara Hatcheries and Assam Police Housing matters — entering the investigation chain — demonstrate the CCI's willingness to proceed where the complaint discloses a plausible case.

For respondents in sectoral matters. The jurisdictional argument — that the matter falls within sector-specific regulation rather than the Competition Act — is now a defensive route, on the Roppen / Rapido line, where the underlying facts support it.

Related editorial pieces

• CCI on Indigo and Air India cancellation charges: closure under s.26(2)
• CCI on Roppen / Rapido: the jurisdictional boundary against the Motor Vehicles Act