Delhi High Court Judge Recuses From Hearing Plea Against Google's New Billing System

Justice Prathiba Singh of the Delhi High Court recused herself from hearing a petition by several startups that want Google LLC to keep its new billing fee system in abeyance until a compliance report in an antitrust case has been scrutinised upon.

The matter will now be heard by a new bench on April 18.

The plea by the Alliance of Digital India Foundation said the compliance report, which was required to be filed by Google as per an order of the Competition Commission of India, has not been scrutinised yet. 

There has been no quorum of the CCI for almost five months. That is why the compliance report that was supposed to be filed by Google before the CCI has not been looked into.

Google has introduced user choice billing, which is a new in-app billing system. This new update will be effected from April 26.

In October, the CCI had found Google guilty for abusing its dominant position in the Android mobile device ecosystem as well as the online search market. It imposed a penalty of Rs 1,337 crore on the tech giant.

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal refused to stay the CCI penalty, following which Google approached the Supreme Court. The top court denied any relief against the order and the matter was again transferred to the NCLAT for consideration on merit.

Recently, the tribunal partially agreed with the order, although four out of the 10 conditions imposed by the CCI were found to be unsustainable.