The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed plea of US 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.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) fined Google, Rs 1,337.76 crore for exploiting its dominant position in Android, which powers majority of smartphones in the country, and asked it to change restrictions imposed on smartphone makers related to pre-installing apps.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and J B Pardiwala granted the US firm seven days to deposit 10 per cent of the penalty imposed by the CCI.
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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 per cent 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.
Reacting to the Supreme Court order Mapmyindia said, "We at MapmyIndia are elated and extremely grateful to the Supreme Court for their order against Google’s appeal. MapmyIndia was mentioned and spoken of multiple times in the Supreme court today by multiple parties, who said that MapmyIndia pioneered digital mapping in India since 1995, far before the birth of google, and offer an alternative in terms of MapmyIndia’s Mappls app versus the force pre-installed Google Maps."
(With agency inputs)
