AGR payment dispute: SC reserves order

Tribune News Service

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New Delhi, July 20

The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its order on private telecom companies’ plea seeking permission to pay their dues on account of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) in a staggered manner spread over a period of several years.

While Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel want 15 years to clear their AGR dues, Tata Teleservices has sought up to 10 years to pay up.

A Bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra made it clear to the telecom companies that they needed to treat the AGR dues calculated by the DoT as final even as the Centre favoured a relaxed timeline to clear the dues.

It asked the DoT to submit details of insolvency proceedings of Reliance Communications, Aircel and Videocon Telecom within a week as it wanted to see if the insolvency proceedings were bona fide.

“Several telcos with AGR dues of over Rs 38,000 crore are under liquidation. Need to ensure that IBC (Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code) is not being misused to escape liabilities,” the Bench said while posting the matter for further hearing on 10 August.

On June 18, the top court had asked private telecom companies to furnish their books of accounts and balance sheets of past 10 years to prove their financial ability to clear their AGR dues.

In a setback to beleaguered telecos, it had on January 16 dismissed the review petitions filed by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and others seeking review of its order asking them to pay Rs 1.47 lakh crore in past statutory dues by January 23 on account of AGR.

The court – which on October 24, 2019 ruled that the statutory dues needed to be calculated by including non-telecom revenues in what is known as AGR of telcos – had said there was no “justifiable reason” to entertain their pleas.

It has already issued contempt notices to telecom companies, including Airtel and Vodafone Idea, for their failure to pay Rs 1.47 lakh crore statutory dues ordered by it to be paid to the DoT by January 23.

Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had told Parliament in November last year that telecom companies owe the government Rs 92,642 crore in unpaid licence fee, and another Rs 55,054 crore in outstanding spectrum usage charges.