The Supreme Court recently dismissed the curative petitions preferred by Vodafone Idea (VI), Bharti Airtel and other telecom companies seeking review of the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) dues payable by them as per the Court's October 2019 judgment [Vodafone Idea Limited v. Union of India].
A three-judge bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices Sanjiv Khanna and BR Gavai said that no case was made out by the telecom companies within the parameters indicated in the decision of this Court in Rupa Ashok Hurra v. Ashok Hurra which lays down grounds on which a curative petition can be entertained.
"Application for listing the Curative Petitions in open Court is rejected. 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 in Rupa Ashok Hurra v Ashok Hurra. The Curative Petitions are dismissed," the Court said in its August 30 order.
In October 2019, the Supreme Court had ruled in favour of the Department of Telecom with regard to AGR thereby, resulting in around ₹92,000 crore burden on telecom companies.
The review petitions filed by them against the October 2019 judgment were dismissed by the apex court in January 2020.
The total liability on Vodafone-Idea was ₹58,254 crore, while Bharti Airtel was to pay ₹43,980 crore.
Vodafone-Idea's own estimate earlier had put the dues at ₹21,533 crore, but the top court had barred telcos from self-assessing their dues, and went with the DoT’s claimed amounts.
In September 2020, the Supreme Court granted telecom companies a period of 10 years to clear their pending AGR dues to the Central government, with 10 per cent payment to be made every year.
The companies had submitted that the Department of Telecom (DoT) had made arithmetical errors in calculation of AGR dues and wanted the Court to allow rectification of errors.
On July 23, 2021, the apex court dismissed the pleas by telecom companies Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Idea and Tata seeking correction of errors in calculation of AGR dues payable by them as per the October 2019 judgment.
The Court had noted that though the plea by telcos appeared to be innocuous at first blush, they had effectively sought reassessment of dues in the guise of rectification of errors.
With the dismissal of the curative petition, the telecos will now have to abide by the October 2019 judgment.
[Read Order]