The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to list next week the modified pleas filed by the telecom giants, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Tata Teleservices, seeking to get more time to pay off adjusted and payment of statutory dues to the tune of Rs 1.47 lakh crore to the Department of Telecommunications. The deadline to pay off the dues is January 23.
The modification in the plea is followed by January 16 decision. A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra had dismissed review petitions of telecom firms seeking review of its earlier order asking them to pay Rs 1.47 lakh crore in statutory dues by January 23, saying it did not find any “justifiable reason” to entertain them.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde took note of submissions by a battery of senior lawyers including A M Singhvi and C A Sundaram and said it will list the fresh pleas “sometime in next week” before the same bench which had heard the earlier petition in the high-stake matter.
“We are not disputing the payment to be made by us rather we want working out of fresh schedule of payment,” Sundaram told the bench which also comprised justices S A Nazeer and Sanjiv Khanna.
These companies said they wanted an open court hearing on their fresh pleas with regard to working out fresh schedule of payment of their dues.
“That (open court or in-chamber hearing) will be decided by the bench concerned,” the CJI said.
(With input from agencies)