WhatsApp on Monday told the Supreme Court that it would comply with the Competition Commission of India directive restraining it from sharing user data with its parent company Meta.
WhatsApp withdrew its appeal against the commission’s November 2024 directive, which also imposed a ₹213.14-crore penalty for unauthorised data sharing.
WhatsApp, represented by senior advocate Kapil Sibal, told a bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant that the company was also withdrawing its challenge to a November 2025 order passed by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal.
While the tribunal had upheld the monetary penalty imposed by the commission, it had allowed WhatsApp and Meta to use subscriber date for commercial advertising and other purposes.
The commission has filed a cross-appeal against this specific part of the tribunal ruling, on which the top court issued notices to WhatsApp and Meta on Sunday.
Sibal told the bench, which included Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M. Pancholi, that WhatsApp would file a compliance affidavit before the tribunal by March 16. The court recorded this in its official order.
On February 3, the bench had come down heavily on WhatsApp and Meta for the unauthorised sharing and commercial exploitation of users’ privacy data.
“We will not allow you to share a single word or data…,” it had warned. “You have made a mockery of the country’s Constitution….”
The top court had described as an “agreement between a lamb and lion” the user agreement that the social messaging platform secures with its millions of subscribers.
It said the agreement had been “cleverly drafted” to keep most users, particularly rural and unlettered subscribers, in the dark about its implications.
Senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Mukul Rohatgi and Amit Sibal represented Meta and WhatsApp, while solicitor-general Tushar Mehta appeared for the Centre and senior advocate Madhavi Divan for the commission.