The Supreme Court has dismissed the curative pleas by the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) seeking correction of the alleged errors in the computation of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) dues payable by them to the government and also their application for an open court hearing of their curative petitions.
“Application for listing the Curative petitions in open court is rejected. We have gone through the curative petitions and the connected documents. In our opinion, no case is made out within the parameters indicated in the decision of this court in… The curative petitions are dismissed,” the top court said in its August 30 order.
The order rejecting the curative petition was passed by a bench of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice Sanjiv Khanna, and Justice B.R. Gavai after considering the petition in their chambers.
The telecom service providers who had approached the apex Court with their curative petition included Bharti Airtel Ltd., Vodafone Idea Ltd, and many other, now grounded, telecom companies.
Earlier on January 16, 2020, the Supreme Court had rejected the TSPs’ plea seeking the reconsideration of its (top court) October 24, 2019, judgment directing them to pay Rs. 92,000 crores of past dues arising from the sharing of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR).
The top court, by its October 24, 2019 order, had directed the telecom service providers to pay the government Rs. 92,000 crores of past dues arising from the sharing of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR).
On March 16, 2020, the Central government approached the Supreme Court seeking modification of its October 24, 2019, order, seeking a 20-year window for the payment of Rs. 92,000 crore dues of the Aggregate Gross Revenue by the telecom service providers.
The amount was calculated based on the payment of around 3% of AGR as spectrum charges and another 8% as license fees to the government.
The court had said that except for termination fees and roaming charges, all revenues coming to telecom service providers would be counted in Adjusted Gross Revenue.
In September 2020, the top court granted telecom companies 10 years to clear their pending AGR dues to the government, with a 10 per cent payment to be made every year. The TSPs were given a deadline of March 31, 2021, to pay the first instalment.
In July 2021, the top Court dismissed the plea of telecom service providers including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, seeking correction of errors in the calculation of AGR dues payable by them as per the top court’s October 24, 2019, judgement.
The TSPs had contended that the Department of Telecom (DoT) had made arithmetical errors in the calculation of the AGR dues and urged the court to allow rectification of errors.
The total liability on Vodafone-Idea was Rs. 58,254 crores, while Bharti Airtel was to pay Rs. 43,980 crores.
Vodafone India in its curative plea had said that it seeks to challenge only the two directions of the top court and it is not challenging or questioning the imposition of license fee on them as defined by the court.
In its first challenge, Vodafone India had questioned the top court direction which said that “demands made by the DoT would be final and that even the manifest/clerical/arithmetical errors in the computation of dues could not be rectified and the licensees would be compelled to make payment of the tentative/provisional show-cause cum demands raised by the DoT.”
The second challenge by Vodafone India was to the direction which stated: “licensees would be liable to pay a penalty of 50 per cent of the entire amount of short-payment and interest on the said penalty at a rate which will be 2 percent above the prime lending rate of State Bank of India and that too compounded monthly (In addition to interest for delayed payment which itself being very high is penal in nature).”
The telecom company had said, “The Petitioner is already on the verge of a financial crisis, which threatens its very existence, and the judgment passed by this Court prohibiting even the corrections of clerical and arithmetical errors in the demands, foreclosing any reduction of the amount payable by thousands of crores of rupees and further imposing a penalty and interest on penalty, is highly unjust.”
The curative plea had stated that since the petitioner is already bearing an excessively high rate of interest on delayed payment which is akin to penalty, it should not be further burdened with penalty and interest on penalty.