Mumbai: Forty-four major cement manufacturers, including L&T Cement, Birla Cement, Grasim and ACC, Century, Dalmia, Jaypee and Mysore, under the aegis of Cement Manufacturer's Association, have practised cartelisation to rig up prices, the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) has held.
 
In an order that followed 17 years of judicial investigation, the commission warned the 44 cement companies and the Cement Manufacturers' Association (CMA) not to repeat the unfair trade practice.

"We issue a cease and desist order... And direct them not to indulge in any such arrangement directly or working through CMA," said a three-member bench consisting of justices O P Dwivedi, M M K Sardana and D C Gupta.

The commission began inquiries on October 12, 1990 into possible cartelisation by cement companies after its investigative wing argued the firms were fixing cement prices "in an arbitrary and unjustified manner."

Despite differing costs of production in different units in the same region, prices of different firms were the same, the investigators said.

The commission directed 41 of the 44 firms not to fix prices in concert and asked these firms to comply with the order within two months.

Passing the order, the MRTPC also directed the cement companies to file a compliance report within eight weeks.