NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and several start-ups in an appeal moved by Google against an order passed by a high court single-bench on the app billing systems case.
With the appeal, Google was challenging Monday's order of the single-judge bench asking the CCI to consider a plea of the Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF) against the tech giant’s policy of allowing the use of third-party payment processors for paid app downloads and in-app purchases on a commission basis.
A Bench presided over by Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and comprising Justice Subramonium Prasad posted the matter for the next hearing on July 19.
On Tuesday, the same bench had refused an urgent listing of the matter which was mentioned by senior advocate Sandeep Sethi, who appeared for Google.
The single-judge bench had, on Monday, asked the anti-trust regulator to consider the plea of the ADIF, an alliance of individuals and an industry representative body of innovative start-ups in the country, on or before April 26.
In the previous hearing, Sethi argued that while the requisite quorum of the CCI is the chairperson and two members, presently it has only two members and thus, it cannot proceed with the ADIF’s plea.
The ADIF approached the court this month with the grievance that the anti-trust regulator failed to act on its application objecting to Google’s new payment policy owing to a lack of quorum.
Google opposed the petition before the single-judge bench on several grounds, including that since there were only two members and the chairperson was yet to be appointed, the CCI was incapable of adjudicating the application filed by the petitioner.