investments. Mr. Vikas Agarwal of OP-6 in his statement also stated that he was approached by other manufacturers and joined the group of other RDSO approved manufacturers for a limited period up to 20.03.2019 for providing supporting bid quotations. However, he stated that the company did not benefit much from the agreement as it hardly received any orders. In his submission before the DG, Mr. Vishal Baid of OP-7 also admitted that since 2016, authorised persons of OP-7 have been communicating with other manufacturers. He submitted that Mr. Rajeev Dudhani, Consultant/ Advisor for OP-7 was working as a commission/ liaison agent for railways business and he was responsible for marketing and quality control for HPPA Bushes orders. Further, he submitted that Mr. Rajesh R., Senior Manager, Operations at OP-7 was the authorised person for filing bids on behalf of OP-7 in tenders floated by Railways for HPPA Bushes. In this regard, Mr. Rajesh R., in his submission, stated that he communicated with other manufacturers of HPPA (and SLPR) Bushes to discuss and finalise bids to be submitted for tenders of Indian Railways. OP-9, in its submission before the DG, also acknowledged the receipt of e-mails from OP-4. Mr. Luv Kumar of OP-10 also, before the DG, admitted that all the approved vendors in market for supply of HPPA bushes were participating in a cartel. He also admitted to have been part of cartel since 2014. He admitted that there were two physical meetings during 20142020. As per Mr. Luv Kumar, he attended first meeting in 2016 at JW Marriott, Aero city, Delhi, which was called by Polyset Group for discussing market share of each vendor pursuant to inclusion of Black Burn Group in the cartel. Hence, it is observed that more or less, representatives of almost all the OPs (OP-1, OP-2, OP-3, OP-4, OP-5, OP-6, OP-7, OP-8, and OP-10) have admitted to the existence of the abovesaid cartel arrangement with respect to HPPA Bushes/ SLPR Bushes.
