The Supreme Court denied Google’s motion to change the Jan. 19 order upholding NCLAT’s decision to punish CCI

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to accept Google LLC’s application to amend the January 19 ruling and said the company could file a complaint while its NCLAT appeal is pending.

Board of Chief Judge D.Yu. Chandrachuda and Judges P.S. Narasimha and J.B. Pardiwala said the most she could add “without prejudice” to the January 19 order was nothing more.

Senior lawyer Maninder Singh, who represents the US tech giant, said parts of the Jan. 19 order should be removed.

The Judicial Board stated that the order was dictated in open court, and therefore there is nothing to clarify or change here.

A lawyer before the Competition Commission of India (CCI) said that Google’s appeal is scheduled for a hearing next week at the National Companies Law Court of Appeal (NCLAT) and they can take the issues before the tribunal.

The judge said to Singh, “Sorry, that’s not possible. We won’t do it. You can make all of these claims during the appeals process.”

On January 19, in a setback for Google, the highest court upheld NCLAT’s order refusing to grant a temporary suspension of Rs. 1337 crores on the US tech giant regulator competition for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the Android mobile device ecosystem.

The High Court said at an interim stage that it suffices to say that the findings of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry against Google were not deprived of jurisdiction and did not contain any apparent error justifying its intervention.

This gave the American firm a week’s time to deposit 10 percent of Rs. A fine of 1,337 crores imposed on him by the CCI.

The High Court has asked NCLAT to decide on Google’s appeal against the competition regulator’s order by March 31 of this year after a hearing schedule was set.

“Suffice it to note that the conclusions reached by the Chamber of Commerce at the interim stage cannot be considered as lacking jurisdiction or as containing a clear error that would require intervention at the interim stage,” he ruled. .

Previously, Google had filed a Jan. 4 NCLAT ruling in a higher court refusing to temporarily suspend a competition regulator imposing Rs. Fine of 1337 crores.

However, NCLAT acknowledged the search giant’s challenge to the CCI to impose a fine for abusing its Android smartphone operating system’s dominance in the country, and in April ordered its application to be listed.

The US-headquartered firm during the hearing unconditionally stated that it was ready to partially comply with the order of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“They can be followed to the following extent: A. Google will ensure that only search and Chrome are separated from Play, Chrome from search; In accordance with the decision of the EC (European Commission) dated July 18, 2018, Google will ensure that the RSA Portfolio Only Preinstalled Search Application Exclusivity will not be prosecuted,” the Supreme Court said.

He noted that the NCLAT filed an appeal for a final hearing and therefore did not consider the case on the merits.

CCI has previously said that the issue of Google’s alleged abuse of dominance in several markets in the Android mobile ecosystem is of “national concern” and the world is watching how India handles the issue.

On October 20 last year, CCI asked Google to allow Android smartphone users to uninstall apps and allow them to choose the search engine of their choice.

This order was to come into force on January 19.

On October 20 last year, the Chamber of Commerce not only imposed a severe fine on Google, but also ordered a major Internet company to stop and refrain from various unscrupulous business practices.

The regulator, which issued the order after a detailed investigation more than three years ago, also asked Google to change its behavior within a certain period of time.

The CCI, which began investigating the case in April 2019, ruled that original equipment manufacturers should not be restricted from choosing from Google’s proprietary apps to pre-install, nor should they be forced to pre-install a suite of apps on their devices. smart devices.