After hearing all the stakeholders, the division bench comprising Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad reserved the order in the case.
Although the case is pending in the Supreme Court, N Venkatraman, Additional Solicitor General appearing for CCI, submitted to the court that CCI’s investigation into the policy cannot be stopped by a judicial process as it had jurisdiction to enquire about the privacy policy.
Countering his submissions, Advocate Tejas Karia, appearing for WhatsApp, said that the authority must wait for the findings of the apex court even though it has jurisdiction. If the highest authority of the country (Supreme Court) is examining the validity of the policy, then it may not be open for any authority to probe the case, he submitted, as per LiveLaw.
Asserting that WhatsApp’s new privacy policy on sharing users’ personal data with parent company Facebook was “neither fully transparent nor based on specific voluntary consent of users,” CCI had ordered a probe into the policy.
(With inputs from LiveLaw.)