What is the exact status of the Competition Bill?
The draft Competition Bill is ready. It has been circulated and we have got the feedback. We are drafting the Bill in an extremely transparent manner. The draft has been put on the Internet. The industry wants to meet me once again on the Bill, which I have agreed to as there is still sufficient time left before the next Parliament session.

What are your comments on the criticism of certain provisions in the draft Bill by industry, especially apex industry bodies such as Ficci and CII?

Those who criticise the Bill should study what is happening the world over. There is the Unctad Model Law being applied the world over. No one in other countries has said that the law is draconian. There are 30 liberalised countries which have implemented the Bill. Ours is a very soft version of what these countries have implemented.

But what exactly is your view on the provisions in the Bill?
We have to address ourselves to core issues in the Bill. In a free market economy, promotion of competition is eventual protection of the consumer. There are three significant parts of the Bill. The first part deals with anti-competitive practices. There are 14 restrictive trade practices under the Monopolies & Restrictive Trade Practices (MRTP) Act. Under the proposed Competition Law, there are only four agreements which are presumed to be anti-competitive and these include agreements such as cartelisation, sharing of territories, restricting production and collusive bid-rigging. Surely, nobody in the industry would justify these agreements.

To give an example, if three large companies in a particular industry decide to curb production, who would save the consumer?
The first part of the Bill relates only to anti-competitive agreements. Most competition laws worldwide have this provision. One thing that liberalisation has done is that it has changed the economy from shortages to surpluses. We today have a pluralistic system where consumer has the final choice.

The second part of the Bill deals with abuse of dominance. Size per se is not bad. We need large companies in India to be internationally competitive. But if someone abuses dominance so that he can operate independent of the market, it is abuse of dominance. There is a legitimate debate within the industry itself on how you define dominance. One section of the industry says that dominance should be defined on the basis of percentage market share while the other wants relevant factors to be taken into account.

In the present draft Bill, we have not used the percentage system because you may have large size companies in India but competition is global. The moment you misuse dominance, the government can lower tariffs to bring in cheaper imports.

What is your view on mergers and acquisitions vis-a-vis the Competition Bill?
The third part of the Bill relates to combination control. Here again, size per se is not bad. It is only when the effect of merger is to eliminate competition that one has to see whether such mergers are in public interest. The industry is saying that there should be no mandatory pre-merger enquiry. We have agreed to this. I have been invited to various seminars by leading industry bodies. I have invited participants there to come forward for a debate with me on the Bill. Not one question was raised after I explained the contents.

So should we assume that the present draft Bill will be introduced in Parliament as it is?
Not at all. So far, even the draft Bill is an opinion of experts. The government is still to take a final view. We are still at the drafting stage. But one thing is clear-any free market economy needs a competition law.

Will the Bill be introduced in the Budget session?
With these kinds of Bills, there is always a hurry, but at the same time, there is no dying hurry. We have to take inter-ministerial opinion. The Bill has to go to parliamentary committees, then it has to be cleared by the Cabinet.

What is your priority for judicial reforms?
Our judicial system is fair, powerful and independent, but it is slow. Let us analyse where the problems lie. The Supreme Court had 1,04,000 pending cases. The number has now come down to 10,000 cases. Last year, 35,000 cases were filed in the Supreme Court and 36,000 were disposed of by the apex court. So the Supreme Court is not a serious problem.

Let us come to subordinate courts. Over the last four or five years, the number of pending cases has stabilised at two crore cases. The number is not going up. The most acute problem is with high courts. There are 34 lakh pending cases and the figure is only adding up.

The problem of pending cases is so large that is cannot be solved overnight. You have to have a long-term perspective. Procedural laws require to be changed. I have, in consultation with bar councils and the Law Commission, introduced amendments to the Civil Procedure Code. We introduced four major changes on the last day of the last Parliament session.

Would you elaborate on the proposed changes?
Service of summons takes extraordinarily long. We have proposed introduction of new servicing methods like using private courier services, faxes and e-mails. Each court will have a panel of private courier agencies. A major time consuming exercise in courts is recording evidence. We have introduced a provision which enables evidence recording by commissioners instead of the courts themselves. The commissioners will be appointed by the courts. By this method, young lawyers and lady lawyers will be benefited as generally they are the ones who are appointed as commissioners.

The appointment of commissioners will cut down the time taken for recording of evidence from several years to days. Unless the courts extend the period of evidence recording due to special reasons, the commissioners would have to complete the exercise within 60 days. At present, it takes two to 10 years. Another provision that we have introduced is to empower the courts to ration the time of arguments given to each litigant before the arguments begin. The rest of the arguments can be submitted in writing.

The fourth change that has been proposed in the Code is regarding delivery of judgments. A judge will be required to deliver judgment within 30 days of conclusion of arguments. This can be extended for special reasons by another 60 days.

What about the Criminal Procedure Code?
A similar exercise has been initiated. Since it comes under the home ministry, we are continuously interacting with them for changes in the CrPC. The home ministry has appointed an expert committee to suggest changes to the CrPC.

The government is a big litigant? Any measures to curtail that?
We are looking at how litigation by government can be curtailed. Can we have permanent Lok Adalats in various government departments? Can we have pre-litigative machinery in government and public institutions? All these things are under consideration.