The Indian Newspaper Society Vs. Alphabet Inc. and Others
- Citation10/2022
Ratio decidendi
The rule this decision rests on
Where an information alleges a contravention whose subject matter is substantially the same as that already under investigation by the Director General in an ongoing case, the Commission may, under the proviso to Section 26(1), club the two matters and direct the Director General to investigate them together and submit a consolidated report. An allegation in an information that is unsupported by any material placed on record cannot found a prima facie opinion under Section 26(1), and investigation cannot be ordered on that allegation.
Written by Miss Lucy from the judgment below, not taken from a headnote.
Judgment
As delivered
1. The present Information has been filed by the Informant, under Section 19(1)(a) of the Competition Act, 2002 (‘Act’) against the Opposite Parties alleging contravention of the provisions of Section 4 of the Act.
2. The Commission considered the Information in its ordinary meeting held today and noted that the subject matter of the allegations made in the instant Information is substantially the same with the subject matter under examination before the Director General (‘DG’) in an ongoing investigation in Case No. 41 of 2021. Accordingly, in terms of proviso to Section 26(1) of the Act, the Commission decided to club the present matter with Case No. 41 of 2021. Resultantly, the DG is directed to investigate the present matter also along with Case No. 41 of 2021 and submit a consolidated investigation report in the matters, subject to the observations made in the succeeding paragraph.
Case No. 10 of 2022 3. It is noted that one of the allegations of the Informant relates to lack of transparency in search results. The Informant has alleged that search results are displayed based on predetermined algorithm and not on the basis of relevance of the content, resulting in lack of level playing field amongst various publishers. However, the Informant has not placed any material on record to substantiate these allegations. In such a scenario, neither any prima facie opinion can be formed, nor investigation be ordered on this count.
4. The Secretary is directed to send a copy of this order along with the Information to the Office of the DG forthwith. Further, a copy of this order may also be sent to the parties through counsel by e-mail for information.
Sd/- Sd/- (Bhagwant Singh Bishnoi) (Sangeeta Verma) Member Member Sd/- (Ashok Kumar Gupta) Chairperson
Case No. 10 of 2022
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