The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to entertain the plea of US-based tech giant Google against an order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) refusing an interim stay on the competition regulator imposing a Rs 1,337 crore penalty on it.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and J B Pardiwala granted the US firm seven days to deposit 10% of the penalty imposed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI).
The top court asked the NCLAT to decide Google’s appeal against the competition regulator’s order by March 31 this year.
The US firm has been asked to approach the NCLAT within three working days from Thursday for seeking adjudication on its appeal against the CCI order.
The NCLAT had on January 4 refused to grant an interim stay on the order of the competition regulator and asked Google to deposit 10 percent of the penalty amount.
The NCLAT had admitted the search giant’s challenge to the CCI, slapping a Rs 1,337.76 crore fine for abusing the dominant position of its Android smartphone operating system in the country.
Competition watchdog CCI’s ruling against internet giant Google is a step towards the next phase of the digital revolution in India, a top official of indigenously-developed apps platform Indus OS said last week.
Indus OS Co-founder and CEO Rakesh Deshmukh said that the CCI ruling against Google very clearly encourages software innovation, which will not only help bring down the prices of smartphone devices but also ensure even further digital penetration as opposed to stalling the growth of the Android ecosystem by pushing up the device price point.
(Disclaimer: Additional background information has been added to this PTI copy for context)
