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Informist, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024

 

NEW DELHI – The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal on Friday rejected a petition by Travel Agents Association of India, alleging anti-competitive agreements between the government and its travel agents which denied market access to the petitioner. The appellate tribunal also put a fine of INR 500,000 rupees on the petitioner, to be deposited in the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund within a period of 15 days.

 

The appellate tribunal said that the Travel Agents Association had approached the Competition Commission of India by filing second information on the same facts and circumstances in which its previous information was rejected. "...these issues cannot be reagitated and the court cannot be called upon to decide the same by passing a lengthy judgment and wasting time which may be used for disposal of a genuine case," said the appellate tribunal.

 

Travel Agents had alleged that the Department of Expenditure, the nodal department of the finance ministry, had adopted exclusionary market prices in favour of Balmer Lawrie and Co. Ltd. and Ashok Travels and Tours for closing the market to the petitioner. The exclusionary market conduct of the department was going on for the last 14 years and has restricted the market access for travel agent services for booking air tickets in India and has adversely impacted the benefit of fair competition which would have resulted in lower prices and better services to the end consumers, said Travel Agents Association. 

 

The association alleged that the department had issued an office memorandum titled 'Guidelines on Air Travel on Official Tours- Purchase of Air Ticket From Authorised Agents'. The Office Memorandum contained direction to all government officials including the employees of the public sector companies to exclusively utilise the services of either Balmer Lawrie or Ashok Travels while booking air tickets for official travel, said the association. It wanted an enquiry under Section 26(1) of the Competition Act to be initiated against the Department and the travel agents.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

 

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