anti-competitive in terms of provisions of the Act. The Commission observes that accreditation of services is a global norm and is encouraged by various countries in the world to instil confidence amongst people. Accreditation agencies ensure compliance of certain basic standards necessary to elevate and upgrade the services for the consumers. Sectors like education, engineering and health etc ., are the areas where accreditation is desired not only by private agencies but also by the government agencies. There are various national and international accreditation agencies for standardisation of goods and services such as National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL, India), The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC, India), National Accreditation Board for Education and Training (NABET, India), Haute Authorite de Sante (HAS, France), Australian Council on Healthcare Standards (ACHS, Australia), the Japan Council for Quality in Health Care (JQ, Japan), the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA, USA) etc . OP-1 being a department of the Government is duty bound to provide best healthcare services to its target group who are CGHS beneficiaries and for that, empanels accredited hospitals besides non-accredited hospitals. Sensitivity and importance attached with the issue of healthcare further warrants adherence of higher quality standards and minute scrutiny of service providers. Accredited hospitals obtain accreditation after satisfying the stipulations/threshold decided by the accreditation bodies and that requires expenditure on their part to maintain the same level of standard and for that, they charge relatively higher for their services. Therefore, based on the abovementioned reasons, the Commission is of the opinion that the different rates for reimbursement, followed by OP-1 on the basis of accreditation, are based on the premise of compensating more for observing higher standards in healthcare segment. Thus, there appears to be a valid justification in the pricing policy and as such, it cannot be said to be unfair or discriminatory.
