The Supreme Court on Friday declined to consider Google LLC’s lawsuit to amend its Jan. 19 order, saying the company could plead its complaints during the hearing of its appeal before NCLAT.
A panel of judges composed of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala said the most it could do was “without prejudice” to the Jan. 19 order and nothing more.
Lead attorney Maninder Singh, who acted for the US tech giant, said part of the Jan. 19 order must be erased.
The bank said the order was dictated in open court and therefore there was nothing to clarify or change.
The lawyer appears for Competition Commission of India (CCI) said the appeal of Google is listed for hearing next week before National Court of Appeal for Corporate Law (NCLAT) and they can raise these issues before the tribunal.
The bank told Singh, “Sorry, I can’t do that. We won’t do it. You can bring all of these grievances during the appeals hearing.”
On Jan. 19, in a setback for Google, the Supreme Court had endorsed NCLAT’s order refusing to grant a temporary stay of a Rs. 1,337 crore penalty imposed on the US tech giant by the Competition Authority for alleged abuse its dominant position in the Android Mobile ecosystem.
The Supreme Court had said in the interim that it would suffice to say that the CCI’s findings against Google were neither lack of jurisdiction nor manifest error justifying its interference.
It had given the US firm a week, 10 per cent of the Rs. 1,337 crore penalty imposed on it by the CCI.
The Supreme Court had asked NCLAT to rule on Google’s appeal against the Competition Authority’s order by March 31 this year, after setting the timetable for the hearing.
“It suffices to state that the findings reached by the CCI at the interim stage cannot be regarded as inadmissible or vitiated by a manifest error which would have required intervention at the interim stage,” she had ordered .
Google previously challenged the Supreme Court against NCLAT’s Jan. 4 order, which denied a provisional stay by the Competition Authority, which imposed an Rs. 1,337 crore penalty on it.
However, the NCLAT had admitted the search giant’s challenge to the CCI to fine it for abusing the dominant position of its Android smartphone operating system in the country and ordered its plea to be listed in April.
During the hearing, the law firm based in the USA had stated impartially that it was prepared to partially comply with the IHK’s order.
“These can be followed to the following extent – A. Google would only ensure unbundling of Search and Chrome from Play, Chrome from Search; For the purposes of the EC (European Commission) decision of July 18, 2018, Google would ensure that the search app preinstall exclusivity only for portfolio-related RSAs would not be prosecuted,” the top court had said.
It had found that NCLAT had listed the appeal for the final hearing and therefore was not hearing the case on the merits.
Earlier, the CCI said that the issue related to Google’s alleged abuse of a dominant position in several markets in the Android mobile ecosystem is of “national concern” and the world is watching how India handles the matter.
On October 20 last year, the IHK asked Google to allow smartphone users on the Android platform to uninstall applications and let them select a search engine of their choice.
This order was to come into effect on January 19.
On October 20 last year, in addition to the high fine against Google, the CCI also sentenced the Internet major to refrain from various unfair business practices.
The regulator, which issued the order after conducting a detailed investigation more than three years ago, has also asked Google to change its behavior by a set deadline.
The CCI, which began investigating the case in April 2019, has ruled that original equipment manufacturers should not be restricted from choosing from Google’s proprietary applications to be preinstalled, nor should they be forced to use a variety of applications to be pre-installed on their Smart Devices.
