Karnataka High Court dismisses Amazon, Flipkart plea against CCI probe

• A single-judge bench had also dismissed the petition on June 11.
• Amazon and Flipkart have been accused of carrying out business malpractices.
• CCI says that if there is nothing to hide, then Amazon and Flipkart should not pitch to stop the probe.

Karnataka High Court, on Friday, July 23, dismissed a plea filed by Amazon and Flipkart against the probe initiated by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for alleged competition law violation.

The order was passed by a division bench, comprising Justices Satish Chandra Sharma and Natraj Rangaswamy. The bench noted, “By no stretch of imagination can inquiry be quashed at this stage… Appellants should not be afraid of investigation of CCI… In the considered opinion of the Court, appeals filed by appellants are devoid of merit and deserved to be dismissed…”

The development was first reported by Indian legal news portal Bar & Bench.

Amazon had approached the Karnataka High Court against a CCI order that called for Director General (DG) investigation. Amazon had been accused of carrying out an anti-competitive conduct in the online sale of smartphones on its platform.

Delhi Vyapar Mahasangh (DVM), which had made these allegations, also accused Amazon of other business malpractices like predatory pricing, deep discounting, preferential seller listing, and exclusive partnerships. Flipkart too was named in these allegations.

Both Amazon and Flipkart had filed a petition to scrap the CCI investigation.

A single-judge bench of Justice PS Dinesh Kumar had also dismissed the petition on June 11. The division bend had upheld that decision.

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Madhavi Divan, appearing for CCI, also submitted a report highlighting a search bias on the respective platforms. Divan elaborated that Amazon and Flipkart were pushing certain sellers, and not giving equal visibility to all sellers.

Amazon, on the other hand, claimed that its algorithm is dictated by consumers and preferential listing is based upon the reflection of the consumers.

"If there is nothing to hide, then there is no reason to scuttle the investigation", submitted Divan.

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