I must Further add, that no programme is worthy of the acceptance of the "working classes that stops short of the abolition of private property in the means of production. Any other programme is misleading and dishonest;
it has two faces to it,
—•William Morris, Monopoly : or How Labour is Robbed
TWO slender volumes1 have recently come out summarising the experience of the Government of India in its first ever attempt to control and regulate concentration of economic power and monopolistic and restrictive trade practices through legal means. The publication of these two annual reports, we think, have provided us with an occasion for a scrutiny and discussion of the role that the Indian Monopolies Commission has played during the last one year and more of its existence in its allotted territory. And this alone can tell us what may be expected of the said Commission in future.
The Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act (MRTP Act) was passed in Parliament in December 1969 and was brought into force in June 1970. Under the provisions of the Act the Government established the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission with a chairman and two members in August 1970. The Commission has the status of an independent judicial body whose chairman has the rank of a judge of a high court or the Supreme Court. The preamble of the MRTP Act describes itself as
an act to provide that Ae operation of the economic system does not result in concentration of economic power
