Supreme Court dismiss the pleas by Meta Platforms, challenging the probe order by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) into WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy of 2021.
A bench of Justices M R Shah and Sudhanshu Dhulia said CCI is an independent authority and the proceedings before it cannot be stop, and junk the petitions against the Delhi high court judgment upholding the probe order by the chief national competition regulator.
Supreme Court Said :
“We’ve heard the counsel. No interference of this court is required to be called for. The CCI is an independent authority to consider any violation of the provisions of the Competition Act of 2002. The CCI cannot be dissuaded from investigation and alleged violation of Competition Act, 2002,”.
Any observation made by the High Court should be consider as tentative/prima facie, the bench said.
The Delhi High Court had on 28th September 2022 dismiss a plea by Facebook India challenging the probe order by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) into WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy of 2021.
Facebook India had approach the single judge bench after a division bench of the high court in August dismiss its impleadment application in a relate matter and grant it liberty to challenge the CCI order by way of a separate writ petition.
The division bench had on 25th August 2022 dismiss the appeals of WhatsApp and Facebook against a single judge’s order rejecting their challenge to the probe order by the CCI into the instant messaging platform’s updated privacy policy.
Facebook India, the Indian subsidiary of US-based Meta Platforms had argue that the CCI has club it in its ongoing investigation against Facebook and WhatsApp even though it has not form any prima facie opinion against it.
In April 2021, a single judge of the high court had refuse to interdict the investigation direct by the CCI on the petitions by WhatsApp and Facebook.
In January 2021, the CCI had on its own decide to look into WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy based on news reports.
The anti-trust regulator had said its investigation concern WhatsApp’s anti-competitive sharing of user data with Facebook.
It also defended the initiation of a probe against Facebook as well in connection with WhatsApp’s privacy policy, saying the former is the holding company of the messaging platform and it can potentially exploit the data being share.
