SC to start hearing Google's plea against Rs 1,338-cr anti-trust fine from Apr 30

Google was penalised for abuse of dominance

The Supreme Court on January 22 indicated that it would start hearing Google's appeal against the order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) upholding Rs 1,338-crore penalty levied by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for anti-trust violations from April 30.

The court was scheduled to commence the hearing in January 2024, however, the hearing has now been pushed because of the Constitution benches.

Senior advocate Harish Salve and Additional Solicitor-General Venkatraman appearing for Google and the CCI sought a date for listing the case as it may not be taken up in January owing to the Constitution benches. Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud orally indicated that the case will be listed on April 30. The lawyers for both the sides told the court that they would need four days to argue the case as it raises certain new questions of law.

Both the CCI and Google have challenged the NCLAT order on various grounds.

In March 2023, the appellate tribunal had partially upheld the order of the fair trade watchdog on the abuse of Android dominance against Google and upheld the levy of Rs 1,338-crore fine.

The anti-trust appellate tribunal held that the CCI's order does not suffer from any confirmation bias. The NCLAT held that Google asking the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to pre-install the entire Google Suite of 11 applications amounts to imposition of unfair conditions.

The NCLAT, however, set aside four key directions issued to Google by the CCI:

1. Google was fair in sending warnings (sideloading) to users when they downloaded applications directly from the website or from an unknown source.
2. Google need not share its proprietary application program interface (API) with third parties.
3. Google was right in not permitting third-party application stores on its Play Stores to avoid malware.
4. Google can restrict the uninstallation of Google Suite apps on Android phones.

In October 2022, the CCI, based on the investigation report and other documents filed by both sides, concluded that Google was abusing its dominant position in multiple markets in the Android mobile device ecosystem. It asked Google to cease and desist from its practices and pay a penalty of Rs 1,338 crore.