The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has quietly trimmed a few lines from its judgment in the high-stakes Google Play Store billing case, following a plea from Alphabet Inc. and Google to keep some numbers under wraps.
At the heart of the matter: paragraphs 97 to 100 of the March 28 ruling, which—according to Google—contained sensitive revenue details lifted from a confidential October 2022 letter submitted to the Competition Commission of India (CCI). Google argued these excerpts never should’ve made it to the public version of the ruling in the first place, especially since the CCI itself had kept that letter sealed.
The tribunal agreed. On Wednesday, a bench led by retired Justice Ashok Bhushan and Technical Member Barun Mitra ordered those specific sections to be scrubbed from both the official website and all future certified copies of the judgment.
This redaction comes on the heels of NCLAT’s partial endorsement of the CCI’s findings: that Google had abused its dominant position by forcing app developers to use its in-house billing system for paid apps and in-app purchases—while letting its own apps, like YouTube, sidestep those same rules. However, NCLAT had slashed the original ₹936.44 crore penalty to ₹216 crore, offering Google a small consolation.
Even after the ruling, Google didn’t back down, swiftly filing for a redaction. The tribunal concluded that the request was fair and granted the deletion.
With this, a little less of Google’s business is out in the open—but the larger question of digital gatekeeping remains fully exposed.
