The Supreme Court has opened a new front on Thursday by ordering telecom companies including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea to present the financial details of the last 10 years. The apex court has fixed the matter for payment of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) arrears in July.
Recently, the court said that it does not make sense to demand an AGR dues of Rs 4 lakh crore from the public sector units of the government. Due to this, the Department of Telecommunications has withdrawn most of its demand. The department on Thursday told the Supreme Court that it has decided to withdraw 96 percent of the demand of Rs 4 lakh crore from non-telecom companies like GAIL and Power Grid Corp.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told a bench of Justices Arun Mishra, S Abdul Nazir, and MR Shah that the Department of Telecommunications had withdrawn the demand and submitted an affidavit, stating the reason for the demand for AGR from these PSUs
Has gone. The apex court had on June 11 directed the Department of Telecommunications to reconsider its demand for AGR recovery from PSUs. As per the Supreme Court order of 24 October, these PSUs were asked to pay the outstanding license fees and spectrum usage charges not only on the revenue related to telecom but also the total revenue.
DoT had asked GAIL to pay Rs 1.83 lakh crore and OIL Rs 48,489 crore. The revenue of their oil and gas business was also included to calculate the arrears on surplus bandwidth leased by these companies to third parties. AGR of Rs 21,953.65 crore was sought from Power Grid and Rs 15,019.97 crore from Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizer and Chemicals Litimed. AGR was also sought from RailTel and Delhi Metro.
The Department of Telecommunications has sought time from the Supreme Court to respond to affidavits filed by two telecom operators - Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, who favored Vodafone India, said that the company had already paid Rs 7,000 crore to DoT. Rohatgi said that because of the current financial position of the company, it is not in a position to give any kind of bank guarantee. Vodafone Idea owes around Rs 53,000 crore. On March 6, the company said that it owes about Rs 21,533 crore to the government, while the estimated liability of Rs 53,000 crore is incurred on the company according to the assessment of the Department of Telecommunications. The company said that it has paid Rs 3,354 crore to the Department of Telecommunications under the AGR head.
Earlier, the company had paid Rs 3,500 crore. Bharti Airtel told the Supreme Court that it should be allowed to pay the outstanding dues to AGR within 20 years. The company said that it is an established company in the telecom sector and hence its credibility can be considered. In a joint affidavit, Bharti Airtel and Bharti Hexacon said that they have already paid Rs 18,004 crore to DoT. The affidavit states that this amount is 62 percent of the amount received from all companies as per the order of the department.
Both companies said that no additional security money should be taken from them during the proposed 20-year period. The Department of Telecommunications has received an amount of Rs 10,800 crore as a guarantee from these two companies. The Supreme Court on 24 October 2019 upheld the definition of Department of Telecommunications on AGR and with it 14 years between the government and telecom companies The ongoing dispute from there was closed. According to official estimates, the government owes Rs 1.47 lakh crore to the AGR item on 16 companies. Many of these companies have either consolidated their business or sold to others or are facing insolvency.
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