ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that it was the Competition Commission of Pakistan’s (CCP) responsibility, as a regulator, to collect information to help it understand market structures and pricing of products.

To seek information from industrial entities, by no stretch of imagination, amounts to an adverse action, Justice Ayesha A Malik held in the judgment she wrote.

Justice Malik was a member of a three-judge Supreme Court bench that had taken up an appeal against the Islamabad High Court’s (IHC) quashment of an inquiry, initiated by the CCP over a 2020 spike in the prices of cooking oil and ghee. Through the judgement, the apex court set aside the high court judgment. The controversy at hand revolves around two letters written on July 13 and Nov 6, 2020 by CCP to Dalda Foods (Pvt) Ltd Karachi to seek information and then initiate an inquiry into the price of vanaspati ghee and cooking oil.

The respondent claimed that that these letters were issued for no justifiable reason, maintaining that the CCP cannot initiate an inquiry based on “vague and indefinite allegations”, or look into the issue of pricing.Subsequently Dalda Foods challenged the same before the IHC, which set aside the letters and orders issued by CCP.

The CCP appeal before the apex court explained that the commission was a body corporate, established under Section 12 of the act with the purpose to ensure free competition in all spheres of commercial and economic activity and to protect consumers from anti-competitive behaviour.

It said that a complaint had been lodged on the Prime Minister Citizen’s Complaint Portal, and the National Price Monitoring Committee (NPMC) had suggested CCP check anti-competitive practices by taking into consideration the international commodity prices.

Moreover, the Ministry of Industries and Prod­uctions had also brought complaints against the non-reduction of ghee and cooking oil prices to the notice of CCP.

The commission contended that it had the mandate to intervene in such situations. In her judgement, Justice Malik noted that there were multiple complaints over the price hike in ghee and related products.

She observed that it was an obligation to fully comply with orders of the CCP for provision of information.

Meanwhile, in an additional note, Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah endorsed the decision, noting that public institutions are not unregulated personal fiefdoms run on the whims and caprice of a few, but are subject to law and can function only with the remit of the Constitution and the law. He noted that it was essential for CCP to convey to the concerned company the gist of the reasons and facts that prevail with the commission in making the decision to initiate on its own an inquiry against that undertaking for a potential violation.

In the present case, the commission did have with it such sufficient facts substantiated by prima facie evidence, which appeared to constitute a contravention of its provisions, he noted while setting aside the high court judgement.

Published in Dawn, September 15th, 2023