New Delhi, Jun 11 (IANS): The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has welcomed the judgement of the Karnataka High Court on Friday dismissing the petition of Amazon and Flipkart and the stay granted on an investigation by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) against Amazon and Flipkarts e-commerce business model in India.

"It fully vindicates the stand of CAIT that the business model of Amazon and Flipkart is entirely based on violating the FDI policy, rules and other laws and therefore without wasting any more time, the CCI should immediately begin its probe," CAIT said.

The CCI found a prima facie case for investigation against Amazon and Flipkart for violating competition law and distorting the level playing field in January 2020. Amazon and Flipkart had approached the Karnataka High Court in February 2020 and obtained a stay on the probe.

The CCI then approached the Supreme Court which directed the Karnataka High Court to hear the matter. Thereafter the matter was heard for nearly 40 days by the Karnataka High Court and the order was reserved in April which was pronounced on Friday.

While welcoming the court order, CAIT said that with the pronouncement of the judgement, there is no bar for conducting investigations into business model of Amazon and Flipkart, and therefore, the CCI should immediately take necessary steps to investigate Amazon and Flipkart's business practices and their business model in India, through which they are continuing with malpractices and dodging the law, rules and policies of the country.

CAIT said it is for both the Central and state governments to bring to the books the people who are continuously violating the law and the rules and speedy actions should be taken against Amazon, Flipkart and others.

"Foreign companies, particularly in the e-commerce sector, have been taking India as a Banana Republic where the laws, policies and rules have no sanctity and they have been provided with impunity to manipulate them according to their wish.

"Unfortunately, they have been successfully violating the laws and polices, bringing much disadvantage to the small traders of the country. Therefore, the dictum ‘actions speak louder than the words' needs to be put into practical operation by the Union government," CAIT said.

CAIT has urged Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal to immediately release a much-awaited new press note replacing press note No. 2 of the FDI policy, blocking the escape routes for these foreign funded e-commerce companies.