Supreme Court has dismissed petitions by Airtel and Vodafone seeking rectification of errors in calculation of AGR dues. In this case, Airtel has to pay Rs 43,000 crore and Vodafone Rs 58,000 crore.
Supreme Court (file photo)
Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Tatatel have suffered a major setback as the Supreme Court’s decision. The court has dismissed the telecom petition on AGR recalculation. The Supreme Court has dismissed petitions including those from Telecom, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea for rectification of errors in the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) calculation. The matter was being heard on July 23 by a bench of Justice LN Rao and Justice Hrishikesh Roy.
Supreme Court dismissed petitions by Airtel and Vodafone seeking rectification of errors in calculation of AGR dues. Airtel has to pay Rs 43,000 crore and Vodafone Rs 58,000 crore. They estimate their dues to be Rs 18,000 crore and Rs 25,000 crore respectively.
Telecom service providers got 10 years time
The Supreme Court last year had given 10 years to the telecom service providers who are struggling to clear the AGR-related dues of Rs 93,520 crore to the government to clear the dues. A bench headed by Justice LN Rao referred to the earlier order passed by the Supreme Court in the matter and said that there can be no reassessment of dues related to AGR.
However, in their petition, the telcos have raised the issue of alleged errors in calculation in the figure of AGR dues sought by the Department of Telecom (DoT). To strengthen its appeal, Vodafone had said that it is going to go under dues of Rs 1.8 lakh crore and sought rectification of mathematical errors. Bharti Airtel, on the other hand, had claimed duplication, unaccounted payments and rejected deductions.
Last year, the Supreme Court had upheld the Government of India’s position on the computation of statutory liabilities. The Center had suggested that revenue from non-core businesses should also be included in arriving at the annual AGR amount. Under the burden of the Telecom Department’s claim, the telecom companies had appealed to the Supreme Court to provide the option of payment in 20 years or 10 years. Vodafone-Idea had argued that the only way to pay such a huge amount would be to ‘earn and pay’.
However, the Solicitor General has informed the Supreme Court that DoT has not shared any direction to allow rectification of errors and the Supreme Court has also held on the last three occasions that the AGR sought cannot be recalculated. .
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