Is A Relevant Market Mandatory To Be Delineated In Cartelization Cases?

The Preamble of the Competition Act, 2002 (Act) states that it is aimed at preventing practices having an 'adverse effect on competition'. Competition does not exist in a vacuum but in a marketplace. For the purpose of competition law, the 'marketplace' has to be defined with even more precision, in terms of a 'relevant market', a market where the effect of competition takes place.

The relevant market can be defined as an instrument to recognize and define the limitations of competition between companies and can be determined by defining the relevant product market or the relevant geographic market or with reference to both the markets.¹ The relevant geographic market² illustrates the locations of the producers or sellers of the product or service and whereas the relevant product market³ describes the market comprising of products or services which are regarded as interchangeable or substitutable by the consumer, by reason of characteristics of the products