What happens when the CCI decides not to investigate?

by Natasha Aggarwal, Amol Kulkarni, Shruti Aji Murali, Bhavin Patel, and Vishnu Suresh.

The Competition Commission of India’s (the “CCI’s”) orders under Section 26(2) of the Competition Act, 2002 (the “Act”) are an important part of it’s preliminary screening function: they close proceedings at the threshold without directing an investigation, are appealable, and impact informants’ rights. They also utilise significant regulatory capacity. This is especially significant given the CCI’s capacity constraints: 42% of sanctioned posts are vacant, grants from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs were insufficient relative to expenditure, and 130 antitrust cases were pending at different stages (Reports of the 25th (2025) and 31st (2026) Standing Committee on Finance). Therefore, how the CCI decides which matters do not warrant investigation, and what resources it allocates to these decisions, becomes important.

In two new working papers, we examine the CCI’s Section 26(2) decision-making and ask what guardrails constrain its discretion, and how it allocates scarce regulatory resources.

In “Order writing and statutory discretion in the CCI’s Section 26(2) determinations”, we use a customised set of indicators based on the Good Order Writing framework developed by Aggarwal et al. (2025) in “A guide to writing good regulatory orders”, to assess the completeness of a random sample of 111 Section 26(2) orders issued between 2014 and 2024 (the “Dataset”). We find that the orders are generally complete, with an average CCI-GOW score of 59.51%, and perform well in appeal, but that the statutory factors under Sections 19(3) and 19(4) are applied inconsistently. We recommend incremental improvements in order-writing alongside a dedicated framework for threshold-stage determinations under Section 26(2).

Our second paper, “The CCI’s allocation of scarce resources in Section 26(2) matters”, examines how the CCI allocates limited regulatory capacity in such matters. We find that approximately 42% of the orders in the Dataset arise from “peripheral matters”, that is, complaints falling outside the scope of competition law or unsupported by evidence. These matters are processed through the same institutional procedures as substantive complaints, with a median disposal time of 30 days. We recommend a layered approach to improve screening, including clearer public guidance, guided filing mechanisms, AI-assisted review tools and statutory prioritisation frameworks, while preserving access to competition law enforcement.

We are pleased to invite you to a presentation of both papers on Friday, 21 August 2026 at 4:00 PM IST, followed by a discussion with competition law practitioners and academics. If you would like to join the discussion virtually, please register here.

References

Natasha Aggarwal, Bhavin Patel, and Karan Singh, “A Guide to Writing Good Regulatory Orders” [2025] Trustbridge Rule of Law Foundation Working Papers (https://trustbridge.in/publications/a-guide-to-writing-good-regulatory-orders/).

Standing Committee on Finance, Ministry of Corporate Affairs Demand for Grants (2026–27) (ThirtyFirst Report, Lok Sabha Secretariat 2026) (https://elibrary.sansad.in/server/api/core/bitstreams/418570d6-7f80-4a04-9eee-6d03ab9b9f03/view).

Standing Committee on Finance, Evolving Role of Competition Commission of India in the Economy, Particularly the Digital Landscape (Twenty Fifth Report, Lok Sabha Secretariat 2025) (https://elibrary.sansad.in/items/39840bff-3981-4e4d-9eda-28fba9cfc1a1).

Natasha Aggarwal, Amol Kulkarni, Bhavin Patel, and Vishnu Suresh are researchers at TrustBridge Rule of Law Foundation. Shruti Aji Murali is KM Counsel at Axiom5.