Karnataka High Court grants extension to Google India to respond to CCI

Karnataka High Court grants extension to Google India to respond to CCI

The Commission held the tech giant guilty of adopting anti-competitive and restrictive trade practices in the mobile operating system

The Karnataka High Court has permitted Google India Private Limited to file its reply to the Director General (Investigation) Report to the Competition Commission of India by 30 July instead of 7 July.

A single-judge bench of Justice SG Pandit told Google India, "You complete your job." The company had sought eight weeks' time from the court to respond on its Play Store payment policy.

The CCI is currently probing if Google India employs anti-competitive measures to require developers to distribute their apps through the Play Store to use Google Play's billing system. And if they have to pay 15-30 percent on the sale of digital goods as a service fee.

The Commission had prima facie found the tech giant guilty of adopting anti-competitive, unfair and restrictive trade practices in the mobile operating system and related markets.

Google India had approached the court questioning the May and June orders passed by the CCI. The Commission had directed the company to respond to the DG Report by July 7. It had also fixed 2 August as the final hearing date on the Second ADIF IRA, the Match Letters and the DG Report.

Appearing on behalf of the company, Senior Advocate Gopal Subramanium and Sajan Povvayya submitted that they were to go through approximately 13,000 pages and 27 pen drives to prepare the reply and a sought time extension.

Subramanium said, "We (Google) have given an undertaking that till 31 October we are not enforcing the Google Pay policy. Thus if eight weeks' time is granted it will only be up to September, when the CCI can begin its final hearing."

But appearing for the respondent, Senior Advocate Dhyan Chinnappa submitted that it was yet another delay tactic adopted by the company.