SC stays proceeding of Testbook suit in HC against Google's billing policy
This story was originally published at 14:33 IST on 4 August 2025
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NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the Madras High Court's order that had allowed hearing of Testbook Edu Solutions Pvt. Ltd.'s suit against Google India Digital Services Pvt. Ltd. regarding the latter's updated payment policies relating to its proprietary Google Play Store.
In June, the high court had dismissed Google's contention that Testbook's suit was barred under the Competition Act, 2002 and the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007. The high court had held that Testbook's suit contained contractual issues that fell within its jurisdiction and could not be dismissed on the threshold. Testbook operates over 700 mobile applications for government exam preparation.
Testbook has challenged the search engine giant's Google Play Billing System and User Choice Billing, which mandate service fees ranging from 15–30% from application developers. Google's policies amounted to a unilateral novation of its agreement with application developers, and that they were contrary to public policy and imposed undue economic duress on the developers, said Testbook.
Google said Testbook's suit was barred under the Competition Act, which expressly ousts civil jurisdiction in respect of matters within the domain of the Competition Commission of India and the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal. Further, the allegations concerning the Payment and Settlement Systems Act are solely within the purview of the Reserve Bank of India, as the sectoral regulator, said Google. End
Reported by Surya Tripathi
Edited by Ashish Shirke
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