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Supreme Court quashes telcos’ plea for correction in AGR dues
The bench then reserved its order while emphasising on the earlier orders passed that clarified that no re-assessment of dues can be done.
The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the petitions by several telecom companies seeking what they said were corrections in the government’s calculation of their dues, a ruling that could threaten some operators in a highly competitive sector.
The bench, headed by justice L Nageswara Rao, rejected the applications moved by Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel and Tata Telecom, which alleged errors in the way their adjusted gross revenues (AGR), and thus dues calculated on the basis of it, were determined.
“We have dealt with all the three applications by a common order. All the miscellaneous applications are rejected,” said the bench, which also included justices SA Nazeer and MR Shah, while pronouncing the operative part of the order.
Last year, the Supreme Court gave the companies 10 years until 2031 to clear dues to the government as part of their license fee for use of the airwaves, after they missed a January deadline to pay roughly ₹93,520 crore.
The court cited its September 2020 judgment, which underlined that the dues payable by the telcos will not be open to any reassessment.
According to a note submitted by the DoT in the Supreme Court last year, Vodafone Idea owed ₹58,254 crore, out of which it has paid up around ₹7,850 crore, Bharti Airtel owed ₹43,980 crore (and has paid a little over ₹18,000 crore) and Tata Telecom owed ₹16,798 crores, of which it has paid ₹4,197 crore.
On a previous hearing on July 19, the companies claimed there were arithmetical errors besides cases of duplication of entries. The court was requested to allow them to approach the DoT, which could look into their grievances and accordingly inform the court. With a debt of ₹1.8 lakh crore and cash balance of ₹350 Crores, Vodafone Idea, through senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, linked the firm’s viability to reduction of its AGR dues.
Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, for Airtel, and senior counsel Arvind Datar, for Tata, too submitted that they were not seeking a re-computation, but only an opportunity with DoT to rectify certain mistakes. When asked about DoT’s stand on the issue, solicitor general Tushar Mehta replied that he did not have any instruction from the department and that he required a day or two to revert.
The bench then reserved its order while emphasising on the earlier orders passed that clarified that no re-assessment of dues can be done.
While the ruling is expected to hurt all three companies, shares of Vodafone Idea fell as much as 14.6% to their lowest since October as analysts expected it to be particularly badly hit.
Friday’s decision does not “bode well for the recovery in the sector,” ratings agency ICRA said in a note, adding that elevated debt levels and very low tariffs were likely to lengthen the process, Reuters reported.
In its September last year order, the apex court had said that telecom operators shall make the payment of 10 per cent of the total dues as demanded by DoT by March 31, 2021 and rest amount should be paid in yearly instalments commencing from April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2031.
