Repeal and saving provisions governed transfer of incomplete antitrust investigations to the Competition Commission of India.

The repeal and saving provisions distinguish between adjudicatory "cases" pending before the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission and incomplete investigations pending before the Director General. A matter in which only a preliminary investigation had been directed, and no report had yet been placed before the Commission, remained an unfinished investigative exercise rather than a pending case for adjudication. Section 66(6) of the Competition Act therefore applied to such investigations and validly carried them over to the Competition Commission of India. The transfer of the pending investigation was accordingly upheld as lawful.

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Issues: Whether an incomplete investigation initiated by the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission under section 11 of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1969 had to be transferred to the Competition Appellate Tribunal under the repeal and saving provisions, or whether it was validly transferred to the Competition Commission of India under section 66(6) of the Competition Act, 2002.

Analysis: The repeal and saving scheme drew a distinction between "cases" pending before the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission and "investigations or proceedings" pending before the Director General of Investigation and Registration. The word "cases" in section 66(3) was held to refer to matters that had crystallised into adjudicatory proceedings before the Commission. Where the Commission had only directed a preliminary investigation and no report had yet been placed before it, the matter remained an incomplete investigative exercise and had not become a pending case for adjudication. Section 66(6), by contrast, expressly covered all investigations or proceedings pending before the Director General, including incomplete investigations, and therefore applied to the transferred matter.

Conclusion: The transfer of the pending investigation to the Competition Commission of India was valid and the challenge to jurisdiction failed.

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