“The Commission has also imposed a penalty on Shree Cement Ltd at the rate of 0.5 times of its profits for the years 2009-10 and 2010-11 aggregating to Rs 397.51 crores,” CCI said in a statement.

The CCI, it added, “found eleven cement manufacturers, including Shree Cement Limited and CMA in contravention of the provisions of the Competition Act, 2002, which deal with anti-competitive agreements including cartels”.

It also asked the company to refrain from such anti-competitive activities in the future.

With regard to other companies, the CCI said as they were fined earlier, it was not imposing any penalty on them again for the same period of contravention.

CCI last month had imposed a whopping Rs 6,307 crore fine on 11 leading cement makers, including ACC, Ambuja Cements, UltraTech, India Cements, Binani Cement, JK Cement, Madras Cement, LaFarge and Jaypee Cement. Industry body CMA was also fined with Rs 73 lakh.

The inquiry, the CCI statement said, was based on a case which was transfered from the Office of the Director General (Investigation & Registration) of the erstwhile Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission to the CCI.

The MRTP Commission had initiated the investigations on the basis of press reports published in a business daily as well as on a letter of Builders Association of India.

(PTI, July 30, 2012)