The Supreme Court will hear Google and CCI’s appeals about the internet giant’s penalties on October 10

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) and Google have filed cross-petition contesting the decision of an appellate tribunal in a case involving Google’s alleged anti-competitive practises in the android mobile device issue. The Supreme Court said Friday that it would hear the cross-petition on October 10.

The appeals were taken up by a bench consisting of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, Justices P S Narasimha and Manoj Misra, who said that they needed “some time to get ready” before taking on the issue.

For one of the parties, senior attorney Harish Salve stated that the petition may be maintained for later resolution.

The bench then instructed the parties to finish submitting their pleadings by October 7 in order to allow the cross-pleas to be listed for final disposition on October 10.

Additionally, it designated attorney Sameer Bansal as the nodal counsel for creating joint digital pleadings with the assistance of attorneys from both parties to facilitate quick resolution of the dispute.

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) rendered a split decision on March 29 on Google’s claimed anti-competitive practises in the case, upholding a punishment of Rs. 1,338 crore while removing conditions such as permitting hosting of third-party app stores on its play store.

The NCLAT had overturned an anti-trust regulator judgement that said Google would not limit users from removing its pre-installed applications while upholding the penalties levied by the CCI for abusing its dominant position in Android.

Google and the CCI both appealed the NCLAT ruling to the Supreme Court.

The appeals were brought up by the top court on July 7; after taking notice of the arguments that senior counsel Salve was unavailable, the hearing was postponed until July 14.

In a previous 189-page judgement, the NCLAT affirmed CCI’s six directives, including the request that Google enable users to choose their preferred search engine during the initial device setup and the clarification that OEMs cannot be required to pre-install a variety of applications.

The appeals court ordered Google to follow the directive and deposit the money within 30 days.

The appeal panel declared that “the impugned order of the Commission is upheld except for the four directions” given and noted that Google “thus is not entitled to any other relief except for setting aside the above four directions.”

In a statement, it was said that “The Appellant (Google) is allowed to deposit the amount of penalty (after adjusting the 10% amount of penalty as deposited under order dated January 4, 2023) within a period of 30 days from today.”

The CCI fined Google Rs. 1,337.76 crore on October 20 of last year for engaging in anti-competitive behaviour with regard to Android mobile devices. The regulator also gave the internet giant an injunction to stop engaging in a number of unfair commercial practises.

This decision was contested before the NCLAT, which has appellate jurisdiction over the CCI’s orders.