SC reserves order on AGR payment row

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 20

The Supreme Court today 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. Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel want 15 years to clear their AGR dues, while 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 Department of Telecommunications (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 the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) is not being misused to escape liabilities,” the Bench said, while posting the matter for further hearing on August 10.

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

PIL seeking preservation of artefacts dismissed

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has dismissed a PIL seeking directions to protect the artefacts recovered during the levelling work for a temple construction at Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya.

Terming the PIL as absolutely frivolous, a Bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh each on the two petitioners and threatened to order a CBI probe into the plea. It asked the petitioners to deposit the fine within a month.

“Stop filing such frivolous petitions… What do you mean by this? Are you saying that there is no rule of law and the judgement of this court (in Ayodhya case) will not be followed by anyone and no one will take action?” the court asked.

It imposed the fine on the petitioners after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta urged the court for the same for filing a frivolous petition.