SC deals big blow to Vodafone Idea, Airtel on AGR dues miscalculation plea

In July 2021, the High court had denied an appeal for modifications in the AGR dues need. The telecom firms then took the issue to the court once more, declaring there were numerous errors in computing the AGR dues, which went beyond Rs 1 lakh crore.

Complying with the order, shares of Vodafone sagged and was last trading 2.43% lower at Rs 8.44 each at 10:45 am on BSE Sensex, which was down 307 points or 0.4%. Bharti Airtel slid 0.2% to trade at Rs 1,710.10 apiece.

The Supreme Court has actually rejected a set of testimonial applications filed by telecommunications firms looking for to rescind its 2021 order, which had actually rejected to permit corrections of mistakes or unintentional additions in the telecommunications department’s calculation of adjusted gross earnings (AGR) dues. With this choice, they have no more lawful choices.

The telecommunications business suggested that there were “glaring mistakes” in the federal government’s demand calculations, where repayments currently made by the firms were not considered when identifying the outstanding AGR fees.

“It is inconceivable that even errors/inadvertent additions by the Respondent-DoT to the AGR dues have not been permitted to be corrected. It is a perversion of justice that the Petitioner is limited from examining arithmetical errors/omissions which are going to cost the Petitioner approximately Rs.25,000 crores (Rs. 5,932 of principal plus rate of interest, fine and passion on fine),” Vodafone Concept stated in its review appeal.

In 2022, Airtel and Vodafone Concept had requested the Supreme Court to listen to in an “open court” their curative applications against an earlier judgment, which had actually denied their demand to remedy what they described as computation mistakes in the Division of Telecoms’ AGR dues evaluation.

“We have actually carefully browsed the testimonial petitions as also the premises in support thereof. In our viewpoint, no case for evaluation of the order dated Jul. 23, 2021, passed in Miscellaneous Applications is made out. The review requests are, as necessary, dismissed. Pending application(s), if any, shall stand disposed of,” stated the bench of Principal Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna, Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice Sanjay Kumar.