An NCLAT bench, comprising Chairperson Justice Ashok Bhushan and Member (Technical) Arun Baroka, has directed the events to file written submissions by October 6 [File] | Photo Credit: REUTERS
An NCLAT bench, comprising Chairperson Justice Ashok Bhushan and Member (Technical) Arun Baroka, has directed the events to file written submissions by October 6.
“All the parties to file concise notes of submissions of not more than ten pages by October 6, 2025,” stated the bench on Thursday, whereas reserving its judgment.
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) was listening to the petition by the tech large Meta, which challenged a penalty of ₹213.14 crore on the social media main for unfair enterprise practices with respect to the WhatsApp privateness coverage replace achieved in 2021.
Senior Counsel Arun Kathpalia and Amit Sibbal have accomplished their submissions within the rejoinder over arguments by the Senior Advocate Balbir Singh showing for the Competition Commission of India (CCI) earlier than the NCLAT, an appellate authority over the orders handed by the honest commerce regulator.
In November final 12 months, CCI imposed a penalty of ₹213.14 crore on social media main Meta with respect to the WhatsApp privateness coverage replace achieved in 2021.
Meta Platforms and WhatsApp had challenged this order earlier than the NCLAT, which, in January this 12 months, handed an interim order, staying the five-year ban imposed by the honest commerce regulator on data-sharing practices between WhatsApp and Meta for promoting functions, providing a breather to the tech large.
Kathpalia, in his rejoinder over CCI’s arguments on Thursday, submitted that the honest commerce regulator’s technique has been to repeat the identical inaccuracies.
He submitted that CCI made a number of inaccurate statements, for example, the 2021 Privacy Policy overrode the opt-out supplied to customers in 2016. Moreover, the honest commerce regulator claimed that the five-year ban was an inexpensive interval which might enable “competition to revive”.
However, no such reasoning is current within the order, he added.
While Sibal, representing Meta, argued that CCI didn’t deal with most of his arguments made through the preliminary listening to and likewise introduced an inventory of the identical to the appellate tribunal.
According to Sibal, CCI’s arguments that it doesn’t want to seek out Meta dominant within the alleged marketplace for on-line show commercials to indicate that there was a denial of market entry on this market are legally untenable and primarily based on an incorrect studying of Supreme Court judgements.
CCI continues to disregard that restricted information is shared by WhatsApp with Meta, he added.
CCI’s counsel Balbir Singh, whereas opposing the petitions by the social media platforms, had submitted that WhatsApp had abused its place by imposing the 2021 privateness coverage on a “take it or leave it” foundation.
Moreover, he additionally rejected that CCI has no jurisdiction on this difficulty because the matter was associated to information safety and stated it’s associated to a bigger public curiosity and comes below the area of the honest commerce regulator. Singh submitted that competitors legislation and information safety legislation serve complementary roles.
In its 156-page-long order, CCI had on November 18, 2024, directed Meta to stop and desist from anti-competitive practices.
According to a CCI order, Meta and WhatsApp have additionally been requested to implement sure behavioural cures inside an outlined timeline to handle the anti-competition points.
The regulator has known as for implementing varied remedial measures, together with barring WhatsApp from sharing information collected on its platform with different Meta firms or Meta firm merchandise for promoting functions for 5 years.
Among different instructions, CCI has stated that sharing of consumer information collected on WhatsApp with different Meta firms or Meta firm merchandise for functions apart from offering WhatsApp providers shall not be made a situation for customers to entry WhatsApp providers in India.
Published – September 29, 2025 11:17 am IST
