Delhi High Court Agrees To Hear Petition Seeking Suspension Of Google Pay

The Delhi High Court has agreed to hear a petition seeking investigation on whether Google Pay has complied with directives and guidelines by the Reserve Bank of India and the National Payments Corporation of India.

The petition filed by Shubham Kapaley has sought suspension of Google Pay’s operations in India till it completely complies with interoperability features.

A single judge bench headed by Justice Asha Menon issued notices to the Central Government, RBI, Google Pay and other respondents, directing that all replies be filed within three weeks. The court hasn’t announced the next date of hearing.

The petitioner has sought the following prayers:

• Direct respondents no.1, 2, 3 and 4 to immediately take action against respondent no. 5, which is provisioning its services by way of “Google Pay” in India.
• Direct the respondents no. 1 and 2 to immediately suspend operations of respondent no. 5 in Unified Payments Interface through its app “Google Pay” till it completely complies with interoperability.
• Direct respondents no. 1 and 2 to conduct a thorough third-party and independent investigation of respondent no. 5’s Google Pay app to check compliance of every directive and guideline issued by NPCI and RBI.
• Direct respondent no. 5 to suspend its operations and/or not expand its user base till a thorough independent third-party audit by CERT-IN or any other reputed third-party app of Google Pay is conducted and certified by respondents no. 1 and 2.
• Direct respondents no. 1 and 2 to initiate proper punitive action against respondent no. 5 for its wilful and continued non-compliance of directions/circular of respondents no. 1 and 2.
• Impose a hefty penalty amounting to at least 10 times Google Pay’s revenue since start of its India operations to be contributed towards Covid-19 relief fund in India.