Introduction

India has always being a competitive market for businesses. However, under license raj regime, which was till the early 1990’s (it worked when started but had been over used its utility over the years), severely depreciated country’s economic development. The economic crisis in early 90s that was faced by the country led to a proposition to many economic reforms. It started with introduction of the New Economic Policy and the New Industrial Policy (NIP) in 1991. After the introducing these new policies a slew of liberalization and competition followed which resulted in higher GDP growth, more job opportunities, and a high availability and wide variety of goods and services for the end buyer; the benefits of which have been more persistent in sectors like airlines, telecom, automobiles, consumer electronics and durables.  With these policies and rapid increase in business activity the need for competition law became even more important than in this (LPG) era. After these policies, competition in different industries has helped the Indian buyer and industries in ways that could not even have been forecasted before by the economist. However, every parliament have social concerns, especially for the less lucky people of the society. Failures in the market do take place, and non-Bonafede marketer can often undermine the benefits through anticompetitive practices. Keeping the businesses to not exploit the market for self gain and for market abuse has made all countries over the globe to enact rudimentary competition laws and various authorities to watch the market players in the country[1]

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Origin and Growth of competition law in India

In India, legislations were drafted in order to take steps to provide for the first time by enacting Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act (MPTP Act), 1959 which was inspired from the mandate enchanted in the Directive Principles of State Policy in the Constitution. Initially it was drafted to prevent concentration of economic power with few persons, to control monopolies and to stop monopolistic and restrictive business practices in the market, the heart of act was embedded in clauses (b) and (c) of Article 39 of the Constitution of India. One of the important feature of our State Policy is, therefore, to make sure to promote economic and industrial growth and also work towards the welfare of its citizens, continous reduction in the concentration of economic power within few hands and to balance social and economic justice.[2] However, these views with respect to the enactment of the MRTP Act was not shared by M. V. Kamath and he observed that objective to have a decentralized economy has been halted by the appointment of the MRTP Authority³.

The Competition Act, 2002

 This legislation was enacted to replace the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1969. As per the provision of Section 55 in the Competition Act provides for the repeal of the MRTP Act and for matters related to MRTP act was shifted to the Competition Commission which was set up under this legislation. The repeal of the matter would on the ground that the MRTP Act is no longer viable source to resolve issues related to competition[3] which is expected to arise with the growing business and economic development due to new policies prevalent in the country today.  The antitrust issues dealt in this legislation are as enunciated below:

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1. Anti-competitive contracts [4];
2. Abuse of a dominant position[5] ;and
3. Any combination, whether by way of an acquisition of an enterprise or merger of enterprises, above the prescribed threshold level of the assets or turnover of the enterprises involved in the combination[6].

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Competition Commission of India

The Competition Commission of India was formed to achieve the objects of the competition law act. As per the provision of section 7 of the competition which provides for the formation of the Commission, while Section 8 of the act provides what the composition of the Commission and Sec 8 (1) of the act provides that the Commission shall consist of a Chairperson and not more than 10 members but not less than 2 member on the board of the commission which has to be appointed by the Central Government:

• Central government has the responsibility to appoint Chairperson and members of the board whenever it is enacted.
• The Chairperson and every other Member of the board should have the ability, integrity and standing in the society and should be qualified enough to be atleast judge of a High Court; or, has procured special knowledge of, and professional experience of atleast fifteen years in international business, domestic trade, commerce, legal, accountancy, business management, industries, public opinion, office administrator or in any other such matter which, in the opinion of the Government, could be useful to the Commission.
• The Member including chairperson shall be full-time Members in the commission. As per the provision of section 9, states that the chairperson and other members should be selected in the manner as may be prescribed by the central government from time to time.

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Conclusion

In conclusion, the concept of market structure is central to both economics and marketing. In legislation of  competition law, In the relevant market which defines one or more good/ service compete with each other. Any determined geographic market comprises the area in which the concerned organizations are involved in the supplying of goods and services and in which there are homogenous conditions of competition are met.

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A brief of how business and markets work allows market professional and business leaders to understand market trend and how these trends are responsible for changes in the policy and legislation related to competition. A healthy competitive market is needed for new invention and development of the economy. Even though the Indian Economy had passed from the protective view it had over domestic industries, yet a lot of trade practices which are harmful such as creation of cartels and monopoly are still against public policy. These activities not only harms the small business owners but also make the general public helpless as to agree to the absurd terms and conditions imposed by big business players in the market. This enriches the wealth and power distribution into hand of few people and rich get richer at the cost of living of the poor. An organization or authority like the Competition Commission of India is essential to curb such practices in the market.