The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed petitions from WhatsApp and parent company Meta (formerly Facebook) to stay a probe by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) into privacy policies of the popular social media platforms. The Delhi High Court in August allowed a CCI probe into WhatsApp's privacy policy, which was challenged in the Supreme Court by WhatsApp and Meta. A Supreme Court bench, comprising Justices MR Shah and Sudhanshu Dhulia noted that the CCI is an independent authority that considers any violation of the provision of the Competition Act, 2002.
"When having prima facie opined that it is a case of violation of 2002 Act and thereafter when the proceedings are initiated by the CCI, it cannot be said that the initiation of the proceedings of the CCI are wholly without jurisdiction," the bench observed, as reported by Live Law. "The precedent of the Supreme Court has held that the proceedings before the CCI are required to completed be at the earliest. In view of the above, the CCI cannot be restrained from proceeding further with the enquiry/investigation for the alleged violation of the Competition Act. All the contentions available to the parties are kept open. Any observation made by the High Court be considered as tentative/prima facie."
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A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court is presently hearing a petition regarding WhatsApp's privacy policy's validity, which is posted for hearing in January 2023, as per Kapil Sibal, who is representing Meta. The senior advocate also added that a new personal data protection bill could be introduced in the Parliament during the winter session.
Noting that the Constitution Bench hearing cannot affect CCI's statutory powers and that its proceedings cannot be stopped, Justice Shah stated, "Let the investigation go on, let the enquiry go on. Then what final order is, we'll leave it to CCI."
WhatsApp in 2021 updated its privacy policy, stating that the company can share data related to user interaction with business accounts with Facebook. The main catch was that if the new privacy policy wasn't accepted by users, their accounts would get deleted. This in turn led to CCI's investigation into anti-competitive practices of Meta as well as possible abuse of its market dominance.