A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court comprising Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad, on Wednesday, issued notices to the CCI, ADIF and US-based Match Group in Alphabet Inc’s appeal against the Single Judge order in the Google Play Store case.

The matter will now come up for hearing before the Delhi High Court on July 19, with responses to the notices expected to be filed by this date, said sources.

It may be recalled that Alphabet Inc (Google parent) and three Google entities had, on Tuesday, moved the Delhi High Court division bench in appeal against Single Judge order that directed the CCI to take up for hearing ADIF’s complaint against tech giant for non-compliance of competition watchdog’s October 25 ruling in the Play Store case.

Delhi High Court Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma had refused to accept the plea of Alphabet and Google for an early listing of the matter in the wake of the CCI taking up hearing of ADIF complaint on Tuesday afternoon.

Now Alphabet’s appeal matter came on Wednesday before the Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad.

Meanwhile, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has commenced inquiry against Google’s non-compliance to the CCI ruling of October 25 last year.

Although Alliance of Digital Foundation, representing a bunch of digital start-ups, had filed applications with the CCI to initiate proceedings against Google for non-compliance to CCI’s October 25 ruling, the competition watchdog has refrained from taking any action on the contention that quorum requirements are not satisfied for considering any anti-trust matters.

This had prompted digital start-ups to approach Delhi High Court seeking directions to the CCI to consider the applications filed by ADIF.

Delhi High Court Single Judge Tushar Rao Gedela, on Monday, ruled that there is no impediment, legal or otherwise, in directing the CCI to take up the applications (under Section 42 of Competition Act ) filed by the ADIF for hearing and considering the same in accordance with law on or before April 26. Following this Single judge order, the CCI has commenced inquiry into Google’s non compliance to the CCI’s Play Store policy ruling, sources added.

Grounds of appeal

In all, Alphabet Inc and other appellants have raised four legal points to buttress their demand to set aside the Single Judge order.

Alphabet and Google-controlled Indian entities have contended in their appeal that the Single Judge has erred in holding that there is no requirement of maintaining a quorum for the commission under the Competition Act to exercise its adjudicators powers.

The Single judge’s order suffers from various legal infirmities and errors due to which Alphabet, Google, Google India Pvt Ltd and Google India Digital Services have been constrained to move the Division Bench of Delhi High Court, according to the appellants. First, they contended that the Single Judge has made a fundamental legal error and fails to appreciate that the proviso to section 22(3) of the Act imposes a mandatory requirement of a minimum quorum of at least three members for the Commission to conduct its quasi judicial functions, including adjudicators proceedings.

Second, the Single Judge has erroneously and without legal basis limited the applicability of this mandatory statutory requirement (of wuorum) only to administrative decisions.

The third point raised by the appellants is that the Single Judge also fails to appreciate that section 15 of the Act cannot be used to address errors pertaining to lack of a “quorum”.

Four, the Single Judge’s erroneous reading militates against well established canons of statutory interpretation and renders the requirement of a quorum otiose.

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