National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, New Delhi: While deciding an appeal filed against the Competition Commission of India's (CCI) order imposing a penalty of ₹ 936.44 crore on the appellant, Google for abusing its dominant position through its Play Store policies, a bench consisting of Rakesh Kumar, J., and Dr. Alok Srivastava (Technical Member) refused to grant interim relief to the appellant regarding the status quo to remain till the appeal is finally heard.
In the instant matter, CCI vide order dated 20-10-2022, imposed a penalty of ₹ 936.44 crore on the appellant for abusing its dominant position through its Play Store policies. Aggrieved by the impugned order, the appellant filed an appeal before this Tribunal challenging the said order and prayed for interim relief to put a stay on CCI's order.
The Tribunal observed that the CCI's order was passed on 20-10-2022 and the appeal was filed on 20-12-2022, i.e., on the last day of 60 days period allotted for filing of an appeal. The Tribunal opined that the appellant cannot be allowed to insist on interim relief when no urgency was shown in filing the appeal.
Allowing the appeal, the Tribunal directed the appellant to deposit 10% of the penalty amount. The Tribunal held that
“Since, urgency has been shown for passing interim order, keeping in view voluminous record and long impugned order, instead of passing any interim order, we are of the opinion that the appeal can be finally decided at the earliest. Accordingly, the appeal is directed to be listed in the month of April. Put up on 03.04.2023 for final hearing.”
[Google LLC v. CCI, Competition Appeal (AT) No. 01 of 2023, decided on 04-01-2023]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Mr. Arun Kathpalia, Mr. Maninder Singh (Senior Advocates), Mr. Toshit Shandilya, Mr. Hemangini Dadwal, Mr. Ravisekhar Nair, Mr. Parthsarathi Jha, Mr. Mohith Gauri, Mr. Atish Ghoshal, Mr. Deepanshu Poddar, Mr. Aditya Dhupar, Ms. Ketki Agrawal, Mr. Param Tandon, Mr. Bhaavi Agrawal, Mr. Thomas Bohnett, Ms. Aditi Goapalakrishnan, Mr. Aman Sharma, Ms. Bani Brar, Ms. Sayobani Basu and Ms. Vanya Chhabra, Counsel for the Appellant
Mr. Samar Bansal, Mr. Manu Chaturvedi, Counsel for the Respondent No. 1
Mr. Jayant Mehta (Senior Advocates), Mr. Abir Roy, Mr. Soham Goswami, Mr. Vivek Pandey, Mr. Aman Shankar, Ms. Sukanya Viswanathan, Counsel for the Map My India
Mr. Mukul Rohatgi and Mr. Raj Shekhar Rao (Senior Advocates), Mr. Naval Chopra, Mr. Ajit Warrier, Ms. Shally Bhasin, Mr. Yaman Verma, Mr. Ritwik Bhattacharya, Ms. Chandni Anand, Mr. Prateek Yadav and Ms. Parnita Kare, Counsel for the Oslabs Technology India (P) Ltd.
Mr. Abir Roy, Counsel for the ADIF
*Ritu Singh, Editorial Assistant has put this report together.