Days after the Karnataka High Court dismissed plea by Amazon.com Inc and Flipkart to to stall an antitrust investigation into their business practices, the latter moved Supreme Court with an appeal against the ruling on Tuesday.
As per a notice on the Supreme Court website, the e-commerce giant has also named Amazon as a respondent in the case, along with the Competition Commission of India, Delhi Vyapar Mahasangh and the Confederation of All India Traders, CNBC-TV18 reported.
"Amazon and Flipkart's appeals are devoid of merit and substance and deserve to be dismissed," the two-judge division bench comprising Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Nataraj Rangaswamy had said on Friday.
The US-based e-tail giant Amazon and Flipkart's owner Walmart in February 2020 had sought a stay against the CCI order, which asked the director-general to investigate its anti-competitive means in selling smartphones online at heavy discounts.
The CCI ordered the probe after the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) and the Delhi Vypar Mahasangh (DVM), representing micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and traders, accused the e-commerce firms of unfair trade practices.
The court had earlier stayed the probe through an interim order when Amazon and Flipkart had challenged the CCI order against them in February 2020.
During the hearings, which lasted for 40 days over the months, on their petitions in the high court, Amazon and Flipkart had denied any wrongdoing.
The traders' apex body (DVM) had alleged in October 2019 that the e-tailers were giving preferential treatment to select vendors with indirect control on their operations, especially in launching smartphones in the country.
