by kailash babar maulik vyas mumbai realty developers troubles regarding allegations of cartelisation have got murkier as the petitioner has now moved the delhi high court against competition watchdog competition commission of india cci itself the petition along with cci has dragged builders body confederation of real estate developers association of india credai and 20 prominent developers including unitech tata housing development co bptp oberoi realty and puravankara projects to the court the petition is challenging the ccis january order to close the case regarding allegation of cartelization among builders the delhi high court has issued notices to cci credai and developers seeking response to this petition and the matter is scheduled to be heard on january 18 following a complaint last year ccis investigation arm had prepared a report with findings that builders were engaged in unfair trade practices such as onesided contracts with inadequate disclosures the petition had then also alleged that the major realty developers were not disclosing crucial information such as total common area calculation and proportionate share of the apartment being sold on a super builtup area basis cci had in january dismissed the matter through an order the case has been admitted in september this year cci had closed down the case on the grounds of insufficiency of evidence whereas my contention is that evidence is not required due to presumption of law enshrined under section 33 of the competition act said advocate jyoti swaroop arora who has challenged the antimonopoly regulators order an email query to cci and credai remained unanswered until the time of going to press confirming the development delhibased developer bptp said the matter is subjudice and it would not be appropriate for us to comment on the matter at this stage though it is matter of record that we have succeeded before the honble competition commission of india while according to mumbaibased tata housing development company the petition has not been admitted yet cci has disposed the complaint by giving a clean chit to tata housing development co ltd and other developers vide order dated 03022015 of cci however we have been informed that the complainant has filed a writ petition before the delhi high court which is not admitted so far a tata housing spokesperson said in an email response according to rohan pate director of punebased amit enterprises housing the company has provided an immediate and complete response to the notice all calculations are made as per the industry standards and relevant information is shared with the client in advance theres no question of making onesided contracts and not sharing any important information with our clients pate explained a cartel typically implies arrangements among more than two firms aimed at increasing prices through tactics such as cuts in production cartelisation leads to high prices poor quality and reduced choice as per the competition act the maximum penalty for cartelisation is three times a companys profit or 10 of its turnover whichever is higher builders deny charges