AGR issue: Telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad meets PM; DoT takes back order

NEW DELHI: Telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday and discussed the fallout of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) issue, a person familiar with the matter said.

In the evening, Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, who is also the chairman of telecom company Vodafone Idea, met with the telecom minister and discussed the consequences of the Supreme Court’s verdict, another senior government official said.

Industry experts said the Supreme Court order, which diminishes the chances of telcos getting any relief on their AGR dues, may lead to Vodafone Idea shutting down, reducing the industry to a private sector duopoly. This could hurt related businesses such as equipment makers, tower companies, distributors and retailers, leading to large scale job losses.


The court’s remarks on the AGR issue led to a chaotic day in the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), which was hauled up by court for not recovering the dues from telcos and public-sector company by the January 23 deadline set by its October 2019 order. The department faced the wrath of a three-judge bench also for issuing a notice to circle offices, asking them to not take any coercive action against telcos until the court heard a modified plea filed by the companies.

The first official said DoT would soon issue a notice to the officer who had written to the circle offices. The officer would be asked why action should not be taken against him for issuing the notification without taking consent of the telecom secretary and minister, the official added.

Immediately after returning from the apex court on Friday, DoT’s member finance, PK Sinha, called an emergency meeting of senior officers to thrash out the next course of action. Soon after, telecom secretary Anshu Prakash and the member finance were summoned by Prasad, who already had a meeting with the secretary at the justice department.

When asked about the implications of the SC’s remarks, including on initiating contempt of court against the officer who had issued the notice to the circle offices, telecom secretary Prakash said: “We need to read the judgement and only after we have read and discussed the judgement will we be able to say anything including our future course of action.”

An official said after the Supreme Court agreed to hear telcos’ modification plea to negotiate with the DoT, the department thought asking the companies to still pay up the entire amount would seem disrespectful of the court’s decision. “But it appears the department misread the situation,” the official added.

“The situation is, of course, a bit tense but we will comply with the SC’s order in letter and in spirit,” another officer said.

Meanwhile, the DoT withdrew the notice sent to the circle offices, from the department’s website within an hour of the Supreme Court ruling. Nothing new has been put up in its place.

DoT officials in some circles started sending notices to telcos, demanding AGR payment by 11.59 pm on Friday.

Bharti Airtel in a letter to the DoT said it would pay Rs 10,000 crore by February 20, and balance by March 17.

The Supreme Court on Friday didn’t specify any new deadline to telcos, but said if no payments were made by the next date of hearing on March 17, then top executives of the companies must appear in person to explain why they shouldn’t be hauled up for contempt of court.