Competition Commission of India 9th Floor, Office Block1 Kidwai Nagar (East) New Delhi 110023 Email: [email protected] Mob. No. +011 24664100 .... Respondent Present For Appellant : Mr. Rajeev Goyal, Ms. Anshul Misra, Ms. Koninica Bose, Advocates. For Respondent : Mr. Dhruv Malik, Ms. Aditi Sinha, Advocates for CCI. Mr. Dinesh Chandra, Dy. Director, for CCI. Ms. Sunaina Dutta, Jt. Director (Law) for CCI. Cont'd.../ 2 JUDGMENT (16th September, 2025) INDEVAR PANDEY, MEMBER (TECHNICAL) This appeal arises from the final order and judgment passed by the Competition Commission of India (hereinafter referred to as "Commission") on 04.04.2022 under Section 27 of the Competition Act, 2002 (hereinafter called the Act), wherein the Commission held that M/s Satish Kumar Agarwal/ Appellant 1 and M/s Siddhi Vinayak & Sons/ Appellant 2 herein, had contravened Sections 3(3)(c) and 3(3)(d) r/w Section 3 (1) of the Act. The appeal has been filed under Section 53 (b) of the Act challenging the impugned order of the Commission. Brief facts of the case 2. The commission received a general complaint dated 07.08.2018 alleging bidrigging in the tenders invited by the Department of Agriculture, Government of Uttar Pradesh for soil sample testing. The complaint related to alleged bid rigging in respect of two etenders namely, Tender 2018_AGRUP_210583_1 (Moradabad) dated 31.05.2018 ("Tender No. 1") and Tender 2018_AGRUP_212591_1 (Bareilly) dated 18.06.2018 ('Tender No. 2"), invited for the soil sample testing by the Department of Agriculture, Government of Uttar Pradesh. 3. It was stated in the complaint that the following parties participated in the aforesaid two tenders of soil testing in Uttar Pradesh: Competition Appeal (AT) No. 39 of 2022 3 (i) M/s Yash Solutions (ii) M/s Satish Kumar Agarwal (iii) M/s Siddhi Vinayak and Sons (iv) M/s Saraswati Sales Corporation (v) M/s Lab Traders (vi) Edward Food Research and Analysis Centre Limited (vii) Atharva Laboratories Pvt. Ltd. (viii) M/s Newgen Computers (ix) Austere System Pvt. Ltd. 4. It was alleged in the complaint that the following participating bidders acted in a concerted manner in respect of Tender No. 1 and Tender No.2 and resorted to bidrigging in contravention of provisions of Section 3 (1) read with Section 3 (3) (d) of the Competition Act 2022 ('Act'): (i) Yash Solutions, Bareilly (Unit of Yash Ornaments Pvt. Ltd.) ("Yash Solutions"/OP1) (ii) M/s Satish Kumar Agarwal, Bareilly ("M/s Satish Kumar"/OP2) (iii) M/s Siddhi Vinayak & Sons, Bareilly ("M/s Siddhi Vinayak"/OP3) (iv) M/s Saraswati Sales Corporation, Bareilly ("M/s Saraswati Sales"/OP4) (v) Austere System Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi ("Austere Systems"/OP5) 5. It was further alleged that there were numerous red flags in the documents submitted by the aforesaid entities for Tender No. 1 and Tender No. 2, but the tender inviting authorities preferred to ignore these aspects. M/s Yash Solutions emerged as the successful bidder for the award of work for Tender No. l and Tender No. 2 for the regions Moradabad and Bareilly, respectively, in the year 201819. It was also Competition Appeal (AT) No. 39 of 2022 4 stated in the complaint, that in the previous year, i.e., 201718, M/s Yash Solutions was awarded tenders for soil testing for the regions of Bareilly and Moradabad, and Austere Systems was awarded tenders for the regions of Jhansi, Saharanpur and Meerut as a result of such collusive bidding. It was alleged in the complaint that the entities referred above, rigged t