NEW DELHI: A public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Supreme Court (SC), seeking the quashing of a direction of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) over dues related to adjusted gross revenue (AGR). Earlier this week, the DoT had said that it will not take coercive action against telecom companies that failed to meet the court-directed January 23 deadline to pay dues, after Vodafone Idea Ltd and Bharti Airtel Ltd sought more time. Vodafone Idea has dues of over Rs 53,000 crore, Bharti Airtel, with dues of over Rs 35,500 crore and Tata Teleservices with dues of nearly Rs 14,000 crore, are the worst affected by the top court verdict.
The plea, filed by Consumer Rights Foundation, said the DoT’s order amounts to contempt of court and has asked for directions to DoT to take immediate steps/action to ensure immediate recovery of the dues from the firms with regard to the SC order dated October 24, adding the government was duty bound to abide by the order passed by the SC court.
“For that an amount of over Rs 1,47,000 crores is not a small sum whose recovery can be postponed or delayed despite specific directions of this Hon’ble Court at peril of detriment of the citizens of this country from whom these TSPs (telecom service providers) have already collected huge amounts and earned revenue,” the plea said, adding “It is humbly submitted that these dues which have been adjudicated in favour of the government by the Hon’ble Court are not simpliciter private contractual dues of the central government but, in essence, public money and thereby involves substantial public interest. The TSPs after having collected huge amounts from the consumers cannot be allowed to wriggle of its obligation to pay the dues as per the Licence Agreements...”