SC stays impugned order to include 'Rashtradoot' in NRS

New Delhi, May 14 (UNI) The Supreme Court has stayed till further orders the operation of the impugned injunction order passed by the Monopolies and Restrictive Trades Practices (MRTP) Commission, directing the National Readership Studies Council (NRSC) to include the publications of Jaipur based M/s Rashtradoot in its National Readership Survey(NRS) 2006.

A bench, comprising Mrs Justice Ruma Pal and Mr Justice Markandey Katju, also issued notices to 'Rashtradoot' on May 12 on a petition filed by NRSC challenging the impugned order.

The petitioner has challenged the impugned order, passed on January 24, on the grounds that injunction order, under section 12A of MRTP Act, was illegal as it amounted to granting final relief to the complainant.

The petitioner has also contended that NRSC being a private organisation cannot be forced to include any publication in its survey and, moreover, the respondent was neither invited to subscribe to NRSC nor its subscription was ever accepted.

The petition has also alleged that in 2003, the Rashtradoot had made serious allegations of malafide and manipulations against the petitioner in relation to the NRS 2003 and had also sought directions from the court to exclude the readership figures relating to the respondent from its survey report 2003.

The petitioner has pleaded that the complaint filed by the respondent in MRTP is not maintainable and the MRTP Commission is not competent to grant interim relief as injuction order can be passed only when the activities of a party to the case are prejudicial to public interest.

The petitioner has also argued that a publication involved in newspapers and magazines cannot be called a consumer as the activities of such publications are commercial in nature.

UNI AKS/SC PK AT RS1148