A Division Bench of Delhi High Court comprising Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad will, on Wednesday, hear Google’s appeal against the Single Judge order that directed CCI to take up for hearing ADIF’s complaint against tech giant for non-compliance of competition watchdog’s October 25 ruling in Google Play Store case.
This assumes significance as the Competition Commission of India (CCI)— post the Single Judge order of Monday—has already commenced inquiry as regards the allegations made by digital start-ups in respect of Google’s non-compliance of CCI’s October 25 ruling last year.
Interestingly, Delhi High Court Chief Justice had, on Tuesday, refused Google’s plea for an early listing of its appeal matter for the same day.
Now, the Google appeal against the Single Judge order is listed for Wednesday and the Division Bench headed by Delhi High Court Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma will hear it, sources said.
Also read: BL Explainer. Why Indian start-ups are up in arms against Google’s new in-app billing system
UCB goes live
Meanwhile, Google’s new in-app billing fee system, known as User Choice Billing (UCB), has gone live in India since last night (April 26). This would mean that app developers in India, even if they provide a third-party billing system, could end up paying service fee as high as 26 per cent to Google for in-app purchases made through Google Play Store, sources added.
Digital start-ups are crying foul over UCB in its present form and had earlier this month approached Delhi High Court with the grievance that CCI had failed to act on its complaint against Google regarding the new payment policy.
CCI had hitherto not considered ADIF’s complaint as it was felt that the requisite quorum was not available at the Commission to handle the complaint on the anti-trust matter. However, the Delhi High Court Single Judge Tushar Rao Gedela, on Monday, ruled that there is no impediment, legal or otherwise, in directing the CCI to take up the applications (under Section 42 of the Competition Act ) filed by the ADIF for hearing and considering the same in accordance with law on or before April 26.