Meta Platforms Inc and WhatsApp have approached the Supreme Court challenging the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal’s (NCLAT) judgment that upheld a penalty of Rs 213.14 crore imposed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in connection with WhatsApp’s 2021 privacy policy.
The petitioners challenged the NCLAT’s interpretation of alleged abuse of dominance under the Competition Act, 2002, as well as the implications of inter-entity data sharing within the Meta group.
In November 2024, the CCI found that WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy constituted an abuse of dominance under Sections 4 and 19 of the Competition Act. The regulator concluded that the “take-it-or-leave-it” policy coerced users into consenting to expanded sharing of personal data with other Meta entities as a precondition for continued access to the messaging platform.
CCI imposed a monetary penalty of Rs 213.14 crore on Meta Platforms and issued a series of remedial directives, requiring WhatsApp to: refrain from linking service access to cross-platform data sharing; provide clear opt-in and opt-out mechanisms for users; and disclose comprehensively the purpose and scope of data sharing practices.
Meta and WhatsApp subsequently challenged the CCI order before the NCLAT. In January 2025, the appellate tribunal temporarily stayed both the penalty and the five-year restriction on data sharing, observing that a categorical ban could materially disrupt the platform’s business model, which is premised on offering free services to end-users.
In its final ruling in November 2025, NCLAT partially upheld WhatsApp’s contentions by overturning the CCI’s finding that Meta had leveraged its dominance in the over-the-top (OTT) messaging market to consolidate its position in online display advertising. The tribunal, however, sustained the Rs 213.14 crore penalty and, following a clarification application by the CCI, reinstated user-choice safeguards. WhatsApp was granted a three-month period to comply with the prescribed remedial directions.
The Supreme Court proceedings now raise broader questions of competition jurisprudence, including the intersection of data privacy and abuse of dominance, the statutory ambit of Sections 4 and 19 of the Competition Act, and the regulatory limits on coercive consent in digital markets. The case may also invoke precedents such as Google LLC v. Competition Commission of India and Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. v. Competition Commission of India, which examine the nexus between market dominance, consumer choice, and platform-level data practices.
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