Google has moved to the Supreme Court against NCLAT’s ruling supporting CCI’s findings of abuse of dominance in the Android app market. The case involves Google Play billing policies, Google Pay promotion, and a reduced Rs 216.69 crore fine.
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NEW DELHI: Google has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court of India against the judgment passed by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) in March 2025.
This judgment had partly agreed with the Competition Commission of India (CCI) that Google misused its dominant position in the Android market by enforcing unfair rules related to its Play Store billing system and promoting its own app, Google Pay, over others.
Google has also challenged another order by NCLAT dated May 1, which made corrections to the original March decision. In that May order, NCLAT brought back two important directions from CCI which Google had earlier managed to get removed.
These two directions related to data transparency and use of billing data. NCLAT called the earlier removal of these directions an “inadvertent error”.
Google submitted its appeal to the Supreme Court on July 21, and a hearing is expected to happen soon.
The case first began in November 2020 when CCI started investigating how Google runs its Play Store billing system. By October 2022, CCI decided that Google was misusing its dominance by forcing app developers to use its Google Play Billing System (GPBS) for purchases inside apps.
At the same time, Google’s own apps like YouTube were not subject to the same rules or commission fees.
Because of this, CCI fined Google Rs 936.44 crore and ordered it to stop these anti-competitive practices. It also told Google to allow other billing systems and to be more transparent about how it handles user and developer data.
Later, on March 28, 2025, the NCLAT upheld many of CCI’s major findings. It agreed that Google had taken advantage of its strong position in two areas:
- Smartphone operating systems that other companies can license (like Android), and
- The Android app store market.
NCLAT said that Google used this dominance to promote its own digital payments app, Google Pay, which goes against the Competition Act.
“We are satisfied that dominance in first two markets has been used to leverage to promote and protect its position in the market for UPI enabled digital payment apps,”
-the NCLAT stated.
The Tribunal also supported CCI’s finding that Google had placed unfair and discriminatory rules on app developers by making it mandatory to use the Google billing system.
This was considered a violation under Section 4(2)(a)(i) of the Competition Act.
However, the NCLAT did not agree with everything CCI said. It rejected CCI’s views about market access denial and innovation restrictions, saying there was not enough proof. The Tribunal noted that Google’s billing system only made up less than 1% of all UPI transactions, and that there was no clear evidence of blocking competition or slowing down tech growth.
NCLAT also reversed some future-focused rules imposed by CCI—especially the ones that called Google a “gatekeeper” and tried to impose preventive (ex-ante) measures. It explained that such rules go beyond what the current Indian competition law allows.
It referred to the 2024 Digital Competition Law Committee Report, and stated that CCI’s attempt to introduce these forward-looking measures was not valid under the existing ex-post legal framework.
As a result, the original fine of Rs 936.44 crore was reduced. The NCLAT said CCI had wrongly calculated the fine based on Google’s total global revenue. Instead, the fine should only apply to Google’s earnings from the Play Store in India. The penalty was lowered to Rs 216.69 crore.
Then, in its May 1 clarification order, NCLAT brought back two CCI directions:
- Google must clearly explain its data usage policies, and
- It must not use billing data to gain an edge over competitors.
Google had argued that this amounted to reviewing the judgment, but the Tribunal disagreed and allowed these directions to be reinstated.
CASE TITLE:
Alphabet Vs Competition Commission of India.
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