The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain the plea of Googleseeking modification of its January 19 order and asked the search giant to approach the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT)for any relief it seeks against the Rs 1,338-crore penalty imposed by the CCI for unfair practices relating to the mandatory installation of some of its in-house applications.
“We are not inclined to entertain the miscellaneous application. The miscellaneous application is dismissed,” a bench of Chief Justice of IndiaD.Y. Chandrachud said after briefly hearing senior advocate Maninder Singh appearing for Google.
“Sorry, it can’t be done. We will not do it. You can raise all these grievances during the hearing of the appeal before the tribunal,” the bench also comprising Justices P.S. Narasimha and J. B. Pardiwalatold Singh.
The bench made the observation after Singh pleaded that the January 19 order be modified to the extent that Google needs to unbundle only the“Search” and “Chrome” applications from the Play Store and also the “Chrome” from the Search applications.
Singh said it was only on these two issues Google had agreed to abide by the conditions imposed by the European Union. However, the bench refused to buy the argument and asked Google to approach the NCLAT with its plea.
Google would now have to ask Android users which browser and search engine they prefer on their devices.
On January 19, the popular search engine giant suffered a setback as the Supreme Court refused to grant any interim stay of the Rs 1,338cr penalty imposed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI)order for abusing its “dominant position” and resorting to “unfair practices” by arm twisting Android based mobile operators to mandatorily pre-install its own applications.
It had, however, asked the NCLAT to pass its verdict by March 31, on Google’s appeal challenging the penalty and various directives issued by the CCI.
The bench further extended by one week the January 19 deadline imposed by the CCI for compliance of some of its directives.
