On 5 December 2018, the Supreme Court settled the boundary between TRAI and the CCI in the Jio interconnection dispute. It held that where a grievance is rooted in the telecom licensing framework, TRAI — the specialised regulator — must first determine the jurisdictional facts before the CCI can act. A digest of the sequencing doctrine, the verbatim reasoning, and why the two regimes are complementary rather than exclusionary.
The foundational judgment on CCI procedure. A three-judge Bench held that a direction to the Director General to investigate under Section 26(1) of the Competition Act is an administrative, prima facie order — not a final adjudication and not appealable to the Tribunal. It also held that the Commission must still record minimal reasons, need not hear the party at that stage, and is a necessary party once an appeal is filed.
The Supreme Court set aside the CCI's order keeping its 2019 approval of the Amazon–Future Coupons deal in abeyance and its ₹202-crore penalty. It held that Section 45(2) of the Competition Act — a penalty provision for false statements or omissions — cannot be read as a freestanding power to nullify, suspend, or re-open a concluded approval granted under Section 31(1).
The Competition Commission of India closed a decade-old case against twelve Delhi-NCR super-speciality hospitals over alleged overcharging on rooms, tests, devices, consumables and medicines. Disagreeing with its Director General, the Commission rejected a per-hospital market and found no abuse of a dominant position under Section 4.
A Delhi High Court Division Bench dismissed the CCI's appeal and held that interest on a competition penalty can run only from default on a validly served demand notice. The judgment ties interest under the 2011 recovery regulations strictly to the Regulation 3 procedure and forecloses retrospective or automatic accrual. A digest of the dry cell batteries cartel facts, the question of when interest begins, and what the ruling means for penalty recovery.
In 2017 a two-judge Supreme Court Bench upheld the 'relevant turnover' approach to competition penalties, holding that 'turnover' in section 27 of the Competition Act means turnover from the goods affected by the contravention, not a firm's total turnover. A digest of the bid-rigging facts, the proportionality reasoning, the DG's investigative scope, and how the 2023 Amendment has since changed the penalty base.
NCLAT Principal Bench dismisses appeals against CCI's bid-rigging finding on the polyacetal protective-tubes suppliers to Indian Railways; reads 'punished accordingly' in Section 48(1) of the Competition Act 2002 (pre-2023 Amendment) to mean the individual penalty must match the enterprise penalty in scale, applied to the active partner's income.
On 7 April 2026 the Competition Commission held seventeen electrical contractors liable under s.3(3)(d) for cover bidding and bid rotation in APHCL tenders, but issued only a cease-and-desist direction under s.27(a) — calibrating contravention-finding against penalty-quantum where the contraveners are small enterprises with geographically circumscribed conduct.
A 2016 Delhi High Court division bench refused to read constitutional restraints into a click-wrap consent transaction but moulded transitional relief — and the case has been pending before a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court ever since.
The May 2026 NCLAT order setting aside the CCI's ₹301.6 crore penalty on Grasim Industries — on the procedural ground that the CCI failed to give the appellant notice of disagreement with the DG's findings — joins the April 2026 CCI directions for investigation into the Venkateshwara Hatcheries Group and the bid-rigging order against seventeen electrical contractors in the Assam Police Housing tenders. Read together with the closure of the Indigo / Air India cancellation-charges probe and the jurisdictional-boundary disposition in Roppen / Rapido, the cycle discloses the procedural and substantive contours of CCI practice as it stands at mid-2026.