NEW DELHI: In a setback to the telecom service providers, the Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed the petition of telecommunication companies seeking re-computation of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues.
The telecom companies had approached the court, claiming several errors in calculation of dues, which exceeded Rs 1 lakh crore. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Sanjiv Khanna, and BR Gavai dismissed the curative petitions, stating that no valid case was made out within the parameters set by the court’s decision.
“We have gone through the curative petitions and the connected documents. In our opinion, no case is made out within the parameters indicated in the decision of this court… The curative petitions are dismissed,” the court said in the order dated August 30 but was uploaded on September 19.
The court in October 2019 allowed the Centre’s plea to recover AGR of Rs 92,000 crore from them. The telcos filed review petitions against this decision, but the same were dismissed in January 2020. On September 1, 2020, the court passed an order requiring telcos to pay their AGR dues over a period of 10 years.
In 2023, telecom companies including Vodafone filed curative petition against the January 2020 decision (dismissing review petitions). They said in the petition that Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had committed grave errors in computing final demand. For instance, the DoT had raised a demand of Rs 58,254 crore in case of Vodafone, whereas the company’s own assessment was of Rs 21,533 crore.
Following the rejection of petition, shares of Vodafone Idea (VIL) fell 20% on Thursday, hitting a 52-week low of Rs 10.33. Now the company will have to pay Rs 70,320 crore as AGR to the DoT.
VIL sought three main reliefs from the court: Correcting arithmetic and clerical errors in the AGR demand, requesting that the penalty be limited to 50% of the shortfall, and revising interest rate on penalty to 2% above the State Bank of India’s prime lending rate.
The decision has brought the future of Vodafone Idea into limbo as the cash-starving company continues to lose its subscriber base and market share to its competitors, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio.