[BREAKING] Delhi High Court refuses to stay CCI probe into WhatsApp privacy policy

The Delhi High Court on Thursday refused to stay the probe ordered by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) into WhatsApp's privacy policy introduced last year. .A Division Bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad dismissed the pleas by WhatsApp and its parent company Facebook.The Bench said that the appeals were devoid of any merit, and that the judgement of the single-judge is well-reasoned.A detailed judgment is awaited. .WhatsApp and Facebook had approached the Division Bench in appeal after the single-judge refused to grant them relief. .Senior Advocate Harish Salve had appeared for WhatsApp and argued that it was not challenging the investigation, but rather the CCI’s jurisdiction to probe the matter.Salve submitted that the Commission had called for a probe into its privacy policy which has now been kept in abeyance. As the Central government is now in the process of framing a Data Protection Bill, the cause of action in the matter has disappeared.“If they allow our privacy policy, we will have it. If they don’t, we won’t,” he said..Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Facebook (now Meta Platforms), had stated that WhatsApp and Facebook are two different entities.Just because Facebook is WhatsApp’s formal owner and the messaging platform is said to share its data with the parent company, doesn’t mean that it is a necessary party to the probe, he said.“The fact that WhatsApp can share items with certain people does not mean they could all be the necessary parties. These policies are not my policies. Whether it breaches the right to privacy is to be seen but merely because they share it with X, Y or Z is not a ground to investigate me,” the Senior Counsel argued.Rohatgi further submitted that because the challenge to WhatsApp’s privacy policies of 2016 as well as 2021 are pending before courts, judicial discipline demands that CCI does not act in this manner.“They are asking me to show my revenue and balance sheet. It is not an accounting issue. If the highest court in the land is seized of the matter, I dare say, it is a matter of judicial discipline that they not act in this manner,” he submitted..Meanwhile, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) N Venkatraman argued for CCI that WhatsApp’s 2021 privacy policy is still in place and that the Commission has not been able to proceed against the company despite a previous High Court order.He said that the single-judge had refused to stay the CCI probe into WhatsApp’s privacy policy in April 2021, despite which the Commission has not been able to proceed in the matter, because of the appeal pending before the Division Bench.There is no stay on the single-judge’s order, the ASG pointed out.“We succeeded in April 2021. We have a judgment against them. There is no stay. We issued two probe notices. There are reasons strong enough to proceed. Still, 15 months later, we have not been able to proceed,” the ASG said.Venkatraman argued that though a statement was made that WhatsApp does not force anyone to share their data, even when a user denies such permission, a pop-up keeps appearing on the app till the time the user agrees to its conditions.