[BREAKING] Supreme Court dismisses plea by telcos seeking recalculation of AGR dues

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the pleas by telecom companies, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Idea and Tata seeking correction of errors in Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) dues payable by them as per the top court's October 2019 judgment. .The order was passed by a Bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao, Abdul Nazeer and MR Shah on a plea by the telcos seeking recalculation of the AGR dues after rectification of errors.The Court noted that though the plea by telcos appear to be innocuous at first blush, they have effectively sought reassessment of dues in the guise of rectification of errors. "The end result of the relief sought by the Applicants in the guise of correction or rectification of the defects or arithmetical errors in calculation of AGR dues, would be recalculation which would amount to the AGR dues, as specified in the order of this Court dated July 20, 2020, being altered," the Court said..Even at the time of passing of the order dated July 20, 2020, an attempt was made to seek recalculation and reassessment but the same had been rejected outright, the Court noted."There is no room for any doubt, from the perusal of para 38 (i) of the judgment dated September 1, 2020, with respect to this Court entertaining any application for altering the AGR dues of the TSPs," the top court made it clear..The Supreme Court had, in September last year, granted the telecom companies a period of 10 years to clear their pending AGR dues to the Central government with 10 percent payment to be made every year. The deadline given to the telcos for first installment was March 31, 2021..The companies had submitted that Department of Telecom (DoT) had made arithmetical errors in calculation of AGR dues and wanted the Court to allow rectification of errors. .The total liability on Vodafone-Idea is ₹58,254 crore, while Bharti Airtel has to pay ₹43,980 crore..Vodafone's own estimate earlier had put the dues at Rs 21,533 crore, but the top court had barred telcos from self-assessing their dues, and went with the DoT’s claimed amounts.The DoT, as per its calculation, sought AGR dues of Rs 58,400 crore.Of this, Vodafone has paid Rs 7,854 crore and now owes the government Rs 50,400 crore more to be paid in 10 equal instalments through March 31, 2031.The telecom company submitted that the payments already made by Vodafone-Idea were not adjusted by DoT while making the demands.Besides, some revenue items in AGR demands were duplicated and no deduction was given for PSTN related call charges and of roaming charges actually paid to other operators, it was contended..TATA too sought recalculation of its dues stating that Rs. 4,197 crore was already deposited by Tata Teleservices as AGR dues..Bharti Airtel's self-assessment pegged its total dues at ₹ 13,004 crore though it has already paid over ₹ 18,000 crore out of the total AGR dues of ₹ 44,000 crore sought by the DoT.In its plea before the Supreme Court, Bharti Airtel contended that AGR payments which were made earlier was not taken into account by the DoT while raising demands for different circles and years..The plea by Airtel stated that the earlier orders of the Supreme Court directing that the amounts stated should be treated as final and that there should be no further process of assessment, "are ex facie a mistake of this Hon’ble Court"..In October 2019, the top court had upheld DoT's definition of AGR and had asked telecom companies to clear dues within three months. Review petitions by telecom companies were rejected in January 2020, after which they had sought a longer timeline to pay AGR dues in order to avoid bankruptcy.The DoT also agreed to the same and moved the top court for modification of its orders with respect to the deadline for telecom companies to pay Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) dues.Subsequently, in September 2020, the apex court gave 10 years to telecom companies to clear pending AGR dues and asked the NCLT to decide on spectrum sale under IBC. It also exempted payment on entire past dues of shared spectrum, which saved Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio from paying AGR dues worth over Rs 40,000 crore..[Read Judgment]