A Single Judge of Delhi High Court, Tushar Rao Gadela, will, on Wednesday, rule on a plea filed by the Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF) seeking direction to the CCI to invoke ‘doctrine of necessity’ to deal with three applications filed before the competition watchdog.

The three separate ADIF applications moved on different dates had alleged non-compliance by Google of CCI’s directions issued through its October 25 ruling in the Google Play Store Policy case. 

ADIF had moved Delhi High Court to require the CCI to invoke doctrine of necessity in the Google Play Store policy case for initiating non-compliance proceedings against the tech giant.

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The CCI has not taken any action on the applications filed by startups due to lack of quorum. 

In a brief hearing held at Delhi High Court on Tuesday, the counsel for ADIF pointed out that the CCI has invoked doctrine of necessity to approve M&A filings and, as a ‘special’ case, it should also invoke the same to deal with the ADIF’s pleas alleging non-compliance by Google. 

The counsel representing Google, however, denied any non-compliance and also objected to the plea that CCI can proceed without quorum. 

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The matter will now come up for hearing on Wednesday. All parties in the matter (ADIF, Google, and CCI) have been allowed to file their brief written submissions. 

It maybe recalled that ADIF had in its petition before Delhi High Court alleged that Google has tried to bypass the CCI order by announcing ‘User Choice Billing’ (UCB) system, which is scheduled to come into effect on April 26. 

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