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2017 (3) TMI 1692 - SC - Indian LawsJurisdiction of the Competition Commission of India - Section 3 of the Competition Act, 2002 - protection in the name of language - prohibition on telecasting dubbed serial ‘Mahabharat’. Held that:- In the instant case, admittedly the Coordination Committee, which may be a ‘person’ as per the definition contained in Section 2(l) of the Act, is not undertaking any economic activity by itself. Therefore, the ‘agreement’ of such a ‘person’, i.e. Coordination Committee, it may not fall under Section 3(1) of the Act as it is not in respect of any production, supply, distribution, storage, acquisition or control of goods or provision of services. The Coordination Committee, which is a trade union acting by itself, and without conjunction with any other, would not be treated as an ‘enterprise’ or the kind of 'association of persons' described in Section 3. A trade union acts as on behalf of its members in collective bargaining and is not engaged in economic activity. In such circumstances, had the Coordination Committee acted only as trade unionists, things would have been different. Then, perhaps, the view taken by the Tribunal could be sustained. The Coordination Committee (or for that matter even EIMPA) are, in fact, association of enterprises (constituent members) and these members are engaged in production, distribution and exhibition of films. EIMPA is an association of film producers, distributors and exhibitors, operating mainly in the State of West Bengal. Likewise, the Coordination Committee is the joint platform of Federation of Senior Technician and Workers of Eastern India and West Bengal Motion Pictures Artistes Forum. Both EIMPA as well as the Coordination Committee acted in a concerted and coordinated manner. They joined together in giving call of boycott of competing members i.e. the informant in the instant case and, therefore, matter cannot be viewed narrowly by treating Coordination Committee as a trade union, ignoring the fact that it is backing the cause of those which are ‘enterprises’ - When some of the members are found to be in the production, distribution or exhibition line, the matter could not have been brushed aside by merely giving it a cloak of trade unionism. For this reason, the argument predicated on the right of trade union under Article 19, as professed by the Coordination Committee, is also not available. When the lenses of the reasoning process are duly adjusted with their focus on the picture, the picture gets sharpened and haziness disappears. One can clearly view that prohibition on the exhibition of dubbed serial on the television prevented the competing parties in pursuing their commercial activities - the CCI rightly observed that the protection in the name of the language goes against the interest of the competition, depriving the consumers of exercising their choice. Acts of Coordination Committee definitely caused harm to consumers by depriving them from watching the dubbed serial on TV channel; albeit for a brief period. Appeal allowed.
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