Android case: SC to hear pleas of Google, CCI in September

The Supreme Court will hear the cross pleas of Google and the Competition Commission of India (CCI) challenging a verdict of National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) against the tech giant. Last year, NCLAT had upheld a fine of Rs 1,338 crore against Google for allegedly exploiting its dominant position.

A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra took up the appeals and said the pleas can be taken up later.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, appeared for Google, said the plea may be kept for final disposal later. The bench then said the cross-pleas can be listed for final disposal in the second week of September. On July 7 last year, the top court had taken up the appeals for the first time.

Earlier, the bench had appointed lawyer Sameer Bansal as the nodal counsel for preparing common digital pleadings with the help of lawyers from both sides for easy adjudication of the matter.

On March 29 last year, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) had handed out a verdict on Google’s alleged anti-competitive practices in the case — upholding a fine of ₹1,338 crore but scrapping conditions like allowing hosting of third-party app stores on its Play Store.

While upholding the fine imposed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for exploiting its dominant position in Android, the NCLAT had struck down an anti-trust regulator order that had said Google will not restrict the removal of its pre-installed apps by the users.

The NCLAT in its 189-page order, upheld CCI’s six directions, including one in which Google was asked to allow the users during the initial device setup to choose their default search engine, and another that made it clear that OEMs cannot be forced to pre-install a bouquet of apps.

The appellate tribunal had asked Google to implement the direction and deposit the amount in 30 days.