Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea Move Supreme Court Seeking Review Of AGR Judgment
A fresh plea has sought review of the directions on the aspects of levy of interest and penalties relating to AGR.
Bharti Airtel Ltd. and Vodafone Idea Ltd. moved the Supreme Court on Friday seeking review of certain directions passed in its judgement favouring the government on recovering adjusted gross revenue of about Rs 92,000 crore from telecom service providers.
The apex court had on Oct. 24 upheld the AGR definition formulated by the Department of Telecom and termed the nature of objections raised by the telecom service providers as “frivolous”.
Bharti Airtel, in its fresh plea, has sought review of the directions on the aspects of levy of interest, penalty and interest on penalty relating to AGR, a source related to the development said.
One of the review petitions has sought open court hearing in the matter.
In an affidavit filed earlier in the top court, the DoT said that Airtel owed Rs 21,682.13 crore as licence fee to the government and dues from Vodafone totalled Rs 19,823.71 crore, while Reliance Communications owed Rs 16,456.47 crore. BSNL owed Rs 2,098.72 crore and MTNL, Rs 2,537.48 crore.
The apex court made it clear that interest and penalty have rightly been levied on the telecom companies. It said that there would be no further litigation on the issue and it would fix a time-frame for calculation and payment of dues by the operators.