International Journal of Law

Authors
Saurabh Tiwary

Abstract
After liberalization of the Indian economy in 1991, the erstwhile MRTP Act of 1969 was not able to stand up to the expectations of its stakeholders. So much economic concentration provided under the Act was acting as a restraint for the firms to grow. Aftermaths of liberalization brought with it a demand to promote healthy competition in the market, since the government was duty bound to give space and facilitate foreign firms to fetch them a healthy competitive environment in the Indian market. This is said, owing to inefficiency of the MRTP Act, it was not able to carter to the needs of this new dynamic market. The Competition Act of 2002 was the answer for this crisis. The Competition Act, 2002 was enacted but at that time only few of the statutory provisions were enforced, mainly the administrative ones. Rest of them came into play by 2009, with establishment of the Competition Commission of India being as a competition watchdog. Although, this was not easy for the enactment to perform at its optimum capacity. It took almost eight years to the Act, and the CCI to operate at its full swing. A lot had to be faced. Challenges were there such as government apathy, lack of awareness, and CCI being one of the youngest enforcement agencies of the world was yet to learn its own share of experiences in terms of competition law enforcement in India.