Google on Thursday withdrew its appeal against the single judge order of the Delhi High Court, which asked the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to hear applications moved by a group of digital start-ups against Google’s user choice billing system.
The tech giant informed the court that the order was passed when the CCI did not have the quorum to hear the petition. Now that the market regulator has the quorum, Google expressed its wish to withdraw the appeal.
The CCI stated it has no objection to the withdrawal.
A single-judge bench of the Delhi High Court had in April asked the CCI to decide the plea by the Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF) against Google’s billing policy. Google filed an appeal against this order.
The ADIF, representing a group of digital start-ups, filed a petition to suspend Google’s new in-app billing fee system, called the User Choice Billing (UCB), until the CCI investigates the tech giant for alleged non-compliance with its directives. The ADIF had alleged that despite the regulator’s directive asking the tech giant to allow the use of third-party billing services for in-app payments, the UCB system charges a high service fee.
The group of start-ups said their grievance was that the anti-trust regulator had failed to act on its plea about the new policy owing to a lack of quorum to consider the issue.
The court had ruled that any vacancy or defect in the constitution of the CCI would not invalidate any proceedings as far as its adjudicatory powers are concerned. “Any interpretation, other than the aforesaid, would render the provisions of Section 15 (Vacancy not to invalidate proceedings of Commission) otiose and which could not possibly be the intention of the Legislature either,” the court said.
The CCI, in October 2022, imposed a penalty of Rs 936 crore on Google and asked it to allow and not restrict app developers from using any third-party billing services and to not impose any discriminatory condition. The appeal by Google against this decision is pending in the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal.
First Published: Dec 07 2023 | 6:06 PM IST
