The Competition Commission of India (‘CCI’) has imposed penalty on Ghaziabad Development Authority (‘GDA’) for abuse of its dominant position, vide order dated February 28, 2018. 

CCI in its order has held that the conduct of GDA in raising the price of its flats from the initial price of Rs. 2,00,000/- in 2008 to Rs. 7,00,000/- in 2015 under its Pratap Vihar Residential Housing scheme without any enabling provision either in the brochure of the said scheme or allotment letter is arbitrary and unilateral. Further, the condition for levying penal interest of 10.5% per annum in case of delay in the payment of the quarterly instalments by the allottees without a corresponding provision for GDA in case of delay in giving possession of the flats is abusive, being one sided and unfair. Therefore, CCI held that such conduct of GDA is in violation of section 4(2)(a)(i) of the Competition Act, 2002 (‘Competition Act’) and has held it to be anti-competitive.

It may be noted that under section 4(2)(a)(i) of the Competition Act, any act of imposing unfair or discriminatory condition in purchase or sale of goods and services, whether directly or indirectly, shall be an act of abuse of dominant position, except when such discriminatory condition is adopted to meet competition.