Google Play Store: Tech giant moves SC to appeal NCLAT order supporting CCI's allegations against unfair practices

Google has moved to the Supreme Court of India (SC) to appeal the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal's March order, which partially upheld the Competition Commission of India’s allegations of unfair practices, against the tech giant, according to a report by Bar & Bench on July 24.

The filing was made on July 21, and also contests the NCLAT's order in May 2025, which corrected its terminology  from an “inadvertent error” and reinstated two key data-related directives issued by the CCI, as per the B&B report.

The CCI in its findings said the company abused its dominance in the Android ecosystem by imposing unfair Play Store policies and promoting its own payments app, Google Pay, the report added.

A hearing in the case in expected soon, it said. 

The case: Alphabet Vs Competition Commission of India

The CCI began its probe in November 2020 looking into Alphabet's (Google’s parent) billing practices on the Play Store. Later in October 2022, the commission concluded that the tech giant abused its dominance by pushing use of Google Play Billing System (GPBS) for other app purchases, while exempting its own subdiaries (e.g. YouTube) from these fee structures. The CCI imposed a ₹936.44 crore fine on Google and directed the company to halt its anti-competitive practices.

Later in a ruling in March 2025, the NCLAT upheld various abuse findings from the CCI, including that Google used its dominance on Android and app stores to push its own Google Pay app; and that it imposed unfair conditions on developers through GPBS. However, it reduced severity of the accusations, citing the market share of GPBS being below 1 per cent and reduced the fine to ₹216.69 crore based on store-specific revenues. 

Then in a May clarification, the NCLAT reinstated two CCI directions which obligate Google to disclose data policies and remove advantages for GPBS.