Rajiv Sahai Endlaw, J.

1. The intra-court appeal being LPA No.733/2014 was preferred against the order dated 15th October, 2014 of the learned Single Judge of this Court of, though vide the said order issuing notice for 9th March, 2015 of W.P.(C) No.7084/2014 preferred by the appellants but on the application of the appellants for interim relief merely directing that any information marked as confidential submitted by the appellants to the respondent No.1 Competition Commission of India (CCI) as well as to the Director-General, CCI (DG, CCI) shall not be disclosed to any party and shall be kept strictly confidential and not granting ad-interim stay of the investigation commenced by the DG, CCI in Case No.06/2014 of the CCI against the appellants. The said appeal came up before us first on 10th November, 2014 when the counsel for the respondent No.1 CCI appeared on advance notice; after hearing the counsels to some extent, it was felt that the writ petition itself could be decided along with this appeal; accordingly, with the consent of the counsels, we requisitioned the writ petition from the board of the learned Single Judge and listed the appeal as well as the writ petition for hearing on 20th November, 2014. Since the respondent No.2 Vishal Gupta, on whose complaint under Section 19 of the Competition Act, 2002, Case No.06/2014 aforesaid against the appellants had been registered, did not appear inspite of advance copy stated to have been given, notice was also directed to be served on him.

2. On 20th November, 2014, the counsels stated that since the matter involves pure question of law, counter affidavits in the writ petition would not be necessary. The counsel for the respondent No.1 CCI on that date also assured that in the meanwhile investigation would not be concluded nor any precipitative steps be taken. The counsels were heard on 25th November, 2014, 12th January, 2015, 13th January, 2015 and 10th February, 2015 when judgment was reserved giving liberty to the appellants to file written submissions; the same have been filed by the appellants / writ petitioners.

3. The appeal in the circumstances, is now infructuous and is disposed of. We will thus take up the writ petition for adjudication though will be referring to the parties by their nomenclature in the appeal.

4. The three appellants i.e. i) Google Inc., California, United States of America (USA), ii) Google Ireland Ltd., Dublin 4, Ireland, and, iii) Google India Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore, filed the writ petition impugning, a) the order dated 15th April, 2014 of the respondent No.1 CCI under Section 26(1) of the Competition Act directing investigation by DG, CCI into the Case No.06/2014 filed by the respondent No.2, b) order dated 31st July, 2014 of the respondent No.1 CCI dismissing the application filed by the appellants for recall of the order dated 15th April, 2014 as not maintainable, and c) for restraining the respondent No.1 CCI from carrying out any further proceedings against the appellants pursuant to the order dated 15th April, 2014.

5. It was the contention of the senior counsel for the appellants on 10th November, 2014 when the appeal had come up first before us that the investigation against the appellants ordered by the respondent No.1 CCI in all probability would be concluded by 9th March, 2015 for which date notice of the writ petition had been issued by the learned Single Judge, making the writ petition infructuous. It was further his contention that since the order dated 15th April, 2014 of the CCI ordering investigation against the appellants had been passed without hearing the appellants, the appellants were justified in applying to the CCI for recall of the said order and the CCI had erred in, instead of considering the said application for recall of the said order on the ground of the actions of the appellants complained against being beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the CCI, holding the application to be not maintainable. It was