New Delhi: The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on Wednesday (March 29) upheld the Rs 1,337.76 crore penalty the Competition Commission of India had imposed on Google, Business Standard reported. The Tribunal, though, set aside four other CCI directives that the company had been asked to comply with.

The directives that have been set aside would have forced Google to allow uninstalling of its pre-installed apps on Android devices. The directive that asked the tech giant to allow individual app store developers to distribute their app store via Google Play Store was also quashed, the newspaper reported.

“We are grateful for the opportunity given by the NCLAT to make our case. We are reviewing the order and evaluating our legal options,” a Google spokesperson said after the decision.

NCLAT has given Google 30 days to comply with the penalty payment.

Google will still need to comply with the remaining six orders of the CCI, Business Standard reported.

The Tribunal's order held that the pre-installation of entire Google Mobile Services (GMS) on Android phones amounts to unfair use, Bar and Bench reported.

"The Appellant by making pre-installation of GMS suite conditional to signing of AFA/ACC for all Android devices manufacturers, has reduced the ability and incentive of devices manufacturers to develop and sell self-device operating or alternative version of Android and Android Forks and thereby limited technical and scientific development, which is breach of provisions of Section 4(2)(b)(ii) of the Act," NCLAT held.

The NCLAT had earlier refused to grant Google interim relief.

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