A Single Judge of Delhi High Court Pratibha M Singh, on Wednesday, recused herself from hearing the petition filed by Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF) against CCI and Google in the Google Play Store case.
The ADIF petition, filed on Monday, will now be heard by another judge of the Delhi High Court on April 18. Chief Justice of Delhi High Court Satish Chandra Sharma is likely to assign in the next few days a new judge to hear the matter.
ADIF has moved Delhi High Court to require CCI to invoke “doctrine of necessity” in the Google Play Store policy case for initiating non-compliance proceedings against the tech giant.
Also read: Google violating CCI orders, charging app developers exorbitant 11-26% commission: ADIF
This think tank, which represents digital start-ups, has also in its petition urged Delhi HC to direct CCI to take up “timely adjudication” of the interim relief applications filed by ADIF, which had complained to the competition watchdog about non-effective compliance by Google of the CCI’s final order of October 25 last year in the Google play store policies case.
ADIF has also in its petition urged the Delhi High Court to pass an order so as to keep UCB’s implementation in abeyance till the adjudication by the CCI. It also wants Delhi High Court to pass an order/direction that —pending adjudication by the CCI of ADIF’s application— Google be asked to maintain the status quo ( i.e., no commission is to be charged when transactions happen via other payment processors mode (non-Google Play Billing System (GBPS) mode) as it exists now.
This ADIF move to knock on the doors of the Delhi High Court is significant as Google is looking to implement its much talked about User Choice Billing (UCB) policy from April 26.