Google has paid the entire penalty amount of Rs 1,337.76 crore imposed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in the Android case, making it the first case of a Big Tech giant paying a heavy penalty to Indian regulators as the government aims to bring in an inclusive Digital India Act (DIA).

According to IANS, the entire penalty amount was deposited in the Consolidated Fund of India yesterday, within the 30-day deadline set by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) in its order.

The penalty was imposed on Google by the Indian market regulator in October 2022 for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the Android market.

Ritesh Malik, Director of the Alliance for Digital India Foundation (ADIF), who has been at the forefront of assisting Indian startups in their fight against global Internet giants, told IANS that Big Tech firms have begun to view fines/penalties as a ‘cost of doing business’ and prefer to pay them rather than making the ecosystem fairer and non-discriminatory.

“It is important to note that Google made the payment after exhausting all available options, including contacting the SC and the NCLAT. The main issue is whether Google is following the CCI rulings in letter and spirit, which is not the case today,” Malik added.

Google announced earlier this year that it would comply with the CCI’s directives for Android.

“The CCI’s recent directives for Android and Play require us to make significant changes for India, and we’ve informed the CCI of how we will be complying with their directives,” Google stated in a statement.

“We’re updating the Android compatibility requirements to introduce changes that will allow partners to build non-compatible or forked variants,” Google said.

Developers can use user choice billing to give users the option of using an alternative billing system in addition to Google Play’s billing system when purchasing in-app digital content.

The changes came after a Supreme Court bench ruled that the CCI’s findings were not “without jurisdiction or with manifest error” and upheld the NCLAT order, declining to grant Google interim relief.

The bench ordered the NCLAT to rule on Google’s appeal by March 31 and gave the company seven days to pay 10 percent of the Rs 1,337.76 crore penalty imposed by the CCI.

Google claimed that the CCI copied parts of a European court order without investigating related evidence in India.

In a separate case, the CCI fined Google Rs 936.44 crore for abusing its dominant position in its Play Store policies.

In response to Google’s announcement of implementing its new Google Play payments policy, the ADIF had expressed deep concern over the policy change and has demanded that the new policies must be put on hold since Google charges a nearly 30 percent service fee on app developers will prove to be a significant blow to the Indian startup ecosystem.