Competition Commission of India order imposing penalty of Rs.630 crore on DLF upheld by COMPAT, Supreme Court admits DLF’s appeal subject to DLF depositing penalty amount

In 2011 (12th August 2011), on a petition by flat buyer associations of two DLF projects in Gurgaon — DLF Park Palace and The Belaire, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) found DLF abusing its dominant position and imposed a penalty of Rs.630 crore on DLF and asked it to modify apartment buyers’ agreement. DLF challenged CCI’s order in the Competition Appellate Tribunal (Compat) and got a stay order on the penalty. On 19th May 2014, Compat finally dismissed DLF’s appeal. DLF then filed appeal before Supreme Court which came up for hearing on 27th August 2014 before a bench of Justice Ranjana Desai and N.V.Ramana. The appeal numbers are Civil Appeal No.6328/2014, 6481/2014 and 6487/2014. The Court admitted DLF’s appeal subject to DLF depositing the penalty amount of Rs.630 crore within 3 months, out of which Rs.50 crore are to be deposited within three weeks. Experts feel that these orders will encourage more buyers to stand up against real estate developers in a market where delays in delivery, along with loopholes in buyer-developer agreements, are rampant. Click below to read the COMPAT’s order.

Compat order :  http://compat.nic.in/upload/PDFs/mayordersApp2014/19_05_14.pdf

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PIL in Supreme Court demanding blocking of adult porn sites and ban on child pornography

A Public Interest Litigation being Writ Petition (Civil) No. 177/2013 ‘Kamlesh Vaswani vs Union of India and others’ pending in the Supreme Court of India came up for hearing on 29th August 2014 before the Bench of Chief Justice R.M.Lodha, Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice R.F.Nariman. This petition demands ban on child pornography and blocking of adult porn sites in India. The petitioner has stated that crimes against women are fuelled by porn, and referred to the fatal gang-rape of a Delhi student on a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012.  The accused had allegedly watched porn on their cellphones before the horrific assault. The petition states that the sexual content that kids are accessing today is far more graphic, violent, brutal, deviant and destructive and has put entire society in danger and also poses threat to public order in India.

The Government told the Court that servers used to provide porn are located abroad, making it hard to exercise any degree of control over them, however a committee has been formed to deal with the problem. The Bench remarked that Law, technology and governance have to be synthesised to control pornographic materials on the Internet and adjourned the matter to 17th October 2014 to have an update from the Committee. 

Earlier, on 12.7.2013, the Court had observed that issue involved in this case is of great consequence, as far as the citizens, and, in particular, the children between the age groups of 14 to 18 are concerned. The Court hoped that all the parties, including the Union of India, will treat the matter with all seriousness and take positive steps to try and contain the menace. In January 2014, the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) told the Supreme Court that it is practically and technically impossible for them to block pornographic sites without orders from the court and government and they cannot be made liable for objectionable contents of the sites. On 21st April 2014, the Court directed The Secretary, Department of Telecommunication (DoT) to file his personal affidavit within one week on the issue whether the DoT or any other department of the Government of India is competent to issue direction to the respondent No.4 (ISPs) to call off sites showing pornography. The matter will now come up on 17th October 2014.

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