NEW DELHI: In a turn of events that may increase Bharti Airtel’s already enormous AGR liability, the Supreme Court on Friday made an observation that may see the company end up paying around Rs 1,400 crore in AGR dues owed by bankrupt Videocon Telecommunications. Airtel’s total liability, part of which it has already paid, already comes up to nearly Rs 44,000 crore.
On Friday, the SC bench comprising Arun Mishra, S Abdul Nazeer and MR Shah noted that according to spectrum trading guidelines, AGR dues that arise from the spectrumassets would first have to be met, before these licenses could be traded. If the company that had initially held the spectrum could not pay up these liabilities, then the company currently holding the spectrum would need to do so, the court observed.
Videocon had sold its spectrum in the 1800 megahertz band to Airtel earlier, and the latter had gone on to acquire bankrupt Aircel Communications’ spectrum too. Aircel, also bankrupt, owes Rs 12,289 crore. The SC has repeatedly observed that it is worried that all the AGR dues owed by bankrupt firms may be extinguished in the IBC process.
During the hearing, the bench ordered the Department of Telecom (DoT) to apprise it by Saturday the basis of spectrum sharing done by telecom companies and how much is the liability of the sharers. The secretary of DoT has been told to file a specific affidavit apprising the court about who was using the spectrum from the date of grant of license and from which date the respective sharing of spectrum has taken happened.
“The DoT is required to file an affidavit, specifically by tomorrow i.e. by August 22, 2020, pointing out on the basis of sharing arrangement, how much is the liability of the sharers from the date of sharing and how much they have paid and as per our Judgment, what are the arrears, which are required to be paid on the basis of sharing arrangement by respective sharers,” the bench asked. “Secondly, we also require the Secretary, DoT, to file an affidavit with respect to the date of transfer, how much are the previous dues with effect from the date of grant of licence till the date when transfer was made,” it added.