 "CCI doesn't want orders stuck down on technical issues: CCI Chairman Ashok Chawla")
He also asserted the tribunal focusing substantially on procedural and technical issues would mean that "substantiative points of law or issues on merit don't get decided easily".
CCI does not want its orders to be stuck down on technical issues but would follow the directions from Compat till the "system settles down", he said.
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"They (Compat) haven't even gone into the merits. They have just said that natural justice has to be construed and applied in a very wide sense," Chawla told PTI in an interview.
He was responding to a query about Compat, on December 11, setting aside the Rs 6,317 crore penalty imposed on 11 cement makers by CCI for cartelisation and directed the regulator to pass a fresh order in three months.
"We don't want our orders to be stuck down on technical issues. We will follow that (Compat directions) till the system settles down... (All) Judicial system rules don't apply here," Chawla noted.
The CCI chief, who will be retiring next month after being at the helm since October 2011, has seen many of its rulings being challenged both at the tribunal as well as various high courts.
"Our view in the Commission is that we are a multi-member body and we are seven people. The whole idea is that we are a body of experts and each brings his own inputs. For some part, some member may or may not be available, may not be privy to some things but he has seen the papers, he has seen the entire records. He is able to contribute to the decision the Commission is taking sitting together. So, somebody says there is no violation of natural justice," Chawla said.
Of late, the CCI chief said, even the appellate tribunal in its appreciation of matters before it had been focusing substantially on procedural and technical issues, which is all right.
"We welcome that and we will naturally address issues which need to be addressed within the Commission but the end result is that issues on substantiative points of law or issues on merit don't get decided easily. It takes time," Chawla said.
Appeals against CCI rulings can be made before the Compat and in recent times, many of the watchdog's orders have been challenged before it.
Chawla said not much jurisprudence has been built up in the area of competition law which would serve as a guide to the Commission and the stakeholders on what is the overall scheme, what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in the system.
"That is an issue and perhaps it arises out of a strict application of the rules of the judicial system to an architecture which is different in terms of what the Parliament has legislated. The legal architecture in a judicial system per se and the architecture in a regulatory system has to be operated in a different manner," Chawla said.
Otherwise, the state need not have ceded the function of delivering justice in economic matters to regulatory bodies, the CCI chief observed.
"They could have as well have been performed by the sovereign and then subject to the normal course of judicial scrutiny," he noted.
"I think this appreciation of the fact that this architecture has a specific objective is something which the system external to the Commission has to appreciate and then things will actually, substantively move forward," Chawla said.
Compat's judgement, earlier this month, followed appeals filed by the cement firms and Cement Manufacturers Association against two CCI orders passed in June-July 2012.
According to Compat, whether the CCI Chairperson, who did not hear arguments of the learned counsel representing the appellants could become a party to the final order passed by the CCI, was one of the questions which arose in the appeals filed against CCI order of June 20, 2012.
"Before parting with this order, we consider it necessary to mention that we have referred to various provisions of the Act (un-amended and amended) and Regulations and analysed the same to emphasise the proceedings held under the Act and the Regulations should be just and fair and in consonance with the principles of natural justice as engrafted in the Act and the Regulations," the tribunal had said.