The Hindu : `Competition is the key element of free economy'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 13, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka - Mangalore

`Competition is the key element of free economy'

By Our Staff Correspondent

MANGALORE, MARCH 12. Corporation Bank celebrated its 98th foundation day here on Friday. The director of the National Judicial Academy, Bhopal, N.R. Madhava Menon, delivered the second foundation day lecture on "Law and economic development in a globalising environment". Dr. Menon also released the 13th issue of the newsletter, "Senior Citizen'', published by the bank, as a forum for sharing information and experiences among senior citizens.

During the lecture, Dr. Menon said that providing a framework for healthy economic development through the Competition Act, 2002, which replaced the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1969, was significant legislation. Competition was the key element of a free economy based on market principles.

He said the Act aimed at curbing anti-competitive agreements, prohibiting abuse of dominant position by companies or combination of enterprises through acquisition, merger or amalgamation. The competition commission was a powerful institution that could intervene to bring about desired economic outcome through free market processes.

He said similar enactments to direct the new economic reforms include the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1899, the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, the Patent Act, the Securities and Exchange Board of India Act and other legal arrangements to set up regulatory commissions for a number of infrastructure development projects.

However, at this point of time when the economy needed the support of the legal community, there was none coming, as the legal community was busy in litigation and dispute settlement through expensive and dilatory processes of adjudication in which business was no more interested. Some enterprising accountants had obtained law degrees and changed profession to meet the demand for law-economics expertise and they had become successful, he added.

Meanwhile, legal education was realising its inadequacies to meet demands arising from economic liberalisation and had adopted a series of economics, accountancy and technology related courses to prepare lawyers capable of being critical consumers of economic and technical knowledge, he said.

Lauding Corporation Bank, Dr. Menon said he had learnt that technological innovation, consistently high productivity, increasing levels of professionalism, customer appreciation, shareholder satisfaction, admirable degree of corporate social responsibility and total quality management, had been part of the culture and the traditions of the bank.

The chairman of the bank, K. Cherian Varghese, presided over the function. He paid floral tributes to Khan Bahadur Haji Abdullah Haji Kasim Saheb Bahadur, founder of the bank, who, with the help of some spirited entrepreneurs, founded the bank in the temple town of Udupi in 1906.

Major General Inderjit Singh Dhillon, director-general, Help Age India, received a cheque from the bank. The executive director of the bank, P.K.Gupta, proposed vote of thanks.

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