Ex-Air India exec appeals against Jet-Etihad deal: Sources

Jitendra Bhargava, a former executive director with Air India, has requested the anti-trust tribunal to stay the Competition Commission of India (CCI) clearance to the Jet-Etihad deal, reports CNBC-TV18's Ronojoy Banerjee.

An outspoken executive who also wrote a book outlining the fall of the country's national carrier, Bhargava's appeal to the Competition Appellate Tribunal could put one more regulatory hurdle in the path of the Rs 2060-crore Jet-Etihad  deal.

The deal between Naresh Goyal-controlled Jet Airways and the Abu Dhabi carrier Etihad has attracted a host of regulatory concerns from the time it was announced, raising doubts if the Foreign Investment Promotion Board and the Competition Commission of India would approve the deal at all. After much back and forth and changes to the deal's contours, it was only recently that the various approvals came through, albeit with riders.

Bhargava's appeal is now learnt to have picked holes in the reasoning behind the CCI's clearance of the deal and says the competition watchdog failed to initiate a detailed inquiry into the deal.

The appeal adds that the CCI also failed to independently verify changes in the deal, referring to the revised version that Jet and Etihad had submitted in order to get approval.

Bhargava further said that in giving clearance, the CCI carried out an "incorrect analysis" of the market and did not take third-party concerns on board, and accused Jet and Etihad of implementing the Commercial Cooperation Agreement before getting the CCI nod, and sought the tribunal's view on whether this should void the deal.

Bhargava has reportedly said he was "deeply concerned by the impact of combination on the domestic industry" and that the alliance would cause further damage to the already-struggling domestic aviation industry. "The merger will lead to foreclosing competition, driving out the existing competition."