The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has closed a case alleging anti-competitive practices against Godrej & Boyce Mfg and 15 others, finding no evidence of the allegations.
Godrej & Boyce Mfg (Godrej) is the flagship company under the Godrej Enterprises Group that manufactures locks, furniture and aerospace equipment. The 15 other defendants in the case comprise government-affiliated entities. Godrej & Boyce Mfg is known across India for its locks.
Two Gurugram-based advocates, Aditya Tripathi and Arun Gaur (the informants), submitted to the CCI that Godrej and the 15 defendants had systematically manipulated the public procurement process in the institutional furniture market, or corporate furniture. This led to foreclosure of competition and denial of market access to Godrej’s rival companies, they said.
In the tenders, the product specifications were exactly the same as Godrej’s proprietary products, they said. Details such as technical specifications, line drawings and photographs were alleged to be the exact replicas of Godrej’s product catalogue, instead of being neutral and functional.
The informants relied on Excel Corp Care Ltd v CCI (2017) to submit that with rigged specifications, the bidding process had been manipulated from the start.
The alleged process had an appreciable adverse effect on competition in the industry, attracting anti-competitive provisions, they added.
The informants submitted Godrej’s winning rates in tender outcomes in comparison to its competitors. Godrej had won around 43.7%, or 88 contracts out of 201, that it had participated in. In comparison, competitor Methodex Systems had the closest winning rate of 3.13%, or securing one tender out of 32.
The informants submitted that in 2023, Godrej captured 98.9% of the total award value, even though it did not win 71 tenders valued at INR1.3 billion (USD14.4 million).
This bid volume exceeded the total participation value of Godrej’s rivals and indicated a significant winning –gap, which could not be explained by simple competitive efficiency, the informants said. The lack of effective competition resulted in higher procurement costs harming taxpayers, they added.
The informants sought CCI intervention to uncover any closed-door agreements or institutional bias.
Godrej had denied market access to its rivals since they could not produce the products specified in the tender as the specifications were the company’s proprietary property, the informants said. The informants also called the requirement of providing matching imagery, the same as Godrej’s products, in a tender was an unfair condition.
Relying on Coal India Limited and Anr v CCI and Anr (2023), the informants reiterated the principle in law that conditions in a public tender could not be unfair and one-sided.
In its analysis, the CCI said Godrej was not a dominant competitor for the supply of institutional furniture in India, with only 15% of market share. The authority also said the informants’ main grievance seemed to be the design of the tenders and procurement methodology, rather than the bidding process.
The CCI said Godrej’s mere participation in a tender process, without evidence of its involvement in the design, did not establish bid rigging.
Preparing a tender with technical specifications, eligibility conditions and procurement requirements came under the domain of the procuring entities, the CCI said. Even if certain specifications had been the same as Godrej’s products, this could not be understood as collusion or an anti-competitive practice.
Several procuring entities had obtained institutional furniture through provisions in General Financial Rules, 2017 relating to proprietary article certificates and following the due process, the CCI added. None of the material submitted had indicated that any procurement decision had been the result of Godrej’s alleged anti-competitive practices.
The CCI also found the following:
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- The informants’ winning gap analysis lacked corroborative evidence and was insufficient to establish contravention of competition laws;
- Inconsistencies in the data relied on by the informants where Godrej’s competitors with significant win rates were simply not mentioned; and
- There was no evidence of any agreement between Godrej and other entities showing an arrangement to exclude competitors or favour Godrej.
Finally, in the 2 July 2026 order, CCI said no prima facie case existed because of the absence of any evidence or material establishing collusion, co-ordination or any anti-competitive conduct by Godrej and 15 other entities. The CCI then rejected the informants’ requests for relief.
