Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Arrest could be made for evasion of excise even on basis of prima facie quantification of duty

Facts
1.    Petitioner was one of the Directors of an Industrial Unit engaged in manufacture and sale of Iron & Steel Product.
2.    A search and seizure operation was carried out by the officers of the Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence, Jamshedpur at the factory site. Accordingly, the petitioner was summoned to give evidence and documents on several occasions.

3.    Petitioner claimed that in spite of all cooperation, he was arrested. It was submitted by him that evasion of excise duty is treated as cognizable offence only when amount exceed Rs. 1 crore. Further, arrest could be made only whenfinal quantification of the alleged evasion of duty is made by the department, which was not made in his case.

IndiGo's predatory recruitment of Air India's trained pilots is an employment issue: CCI

Mere recruitment of trained pilots of an airline by another airline will not bring about structural changes in the operations of the market. CCI rejected Air India's allegation of predatory recruitment of its trained pilots against IndiGo saying the matter is more of an employment issue Facts:

a) The informant, Air India Ltd. filed complaint against InterGlobe Aviation Limited (the ‘IndiGo’) under section19(1)(a) of the Competition Act, 2002 (the ‘Act’) alleging, interalia,
contravention of the provisions of section 4 of the Act

b) It was alleged that the IndiGo has systematically indulged in predatory recruitment of trained pilots of the Air India for its proposed expansion and inducing them to breach contractual and other obligations.

c) It is further alleged that the IndiGo, by indulging in unlawful predatory recruitment practice, acquired a 52% market share in the non-metro to non-metro flight sector, making it a monopoly in that sector.

d) The Informant also stated that the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had made it
mandatory for pilots to obtain ‘No Objection Certificate’ and, accordingly, all Airlines must

ensure that the pilots hired by them have to serve the required six month notice period however, the IndiGo continued to disregard this direction of DGCA