Setback for Vi, Airtel as SC rejects pleas on AGR dues

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has rejected a batch of curative petitions filed by telcos seeking to set aside the penalty and interest on penalty in the September 2019 order and seeking a correction in what they called arithmetical errors in the telecom department's calculation of the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues.

This is a huge setback to telcos like Vodafone Idea (Vi) and Bharti Airtel who were hoping that a substantial portion of their statutory dues would be knocked off. Now they have no legal recourse left.

Shares of cash-strapped Vi, facing over Rs 70,300 crore in AGR dues, crashed 19.6% to close at Rs 10.4 on the BSE on Thursday amid fears the dues will derail its attempts to expand its network and stem subscriber losses, analysts said.


Though shares of financially stronger Airtel, which faces some Rs 44,000 crore in AGR dues, closed 0.75% higher at Rs 1,665.05 amid hopes Vi's woes will attract more deserters from its weaker rival.

Upholding the quantum of AGR demand, a bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices Sanjiv Khanna and BR Gavai said, "No case is made out" by the telecom companies within the parameters indicated in the SC decision in Rupa Ashok Hurra versus Ashok Hurra which lays down grounds on which a curative petition can be entertained.

Though the order was passed on August 30, it was uploaded on the SC website on Thursday.

Vodafone's lawyer Mahesh Agarwal said that "our legal team is exploring other solutions." However, he refused to give further details.

The operators, in their separate curative pleas, had said they were not challenging the imposition of licence fee on the heads as defined by the apex court, but were seeking to set aside the October 2019 judgment to the limited extent of "imposing penalty and interest on penalty." They had also sought to "allow correction of manifest/clerical and arithmetical errors" in the provisional demands raised by the Department of Telecommunications.

A curative petition, which is the last resort for any litigant to get relief, is usually decided by judges in the chamber unless a specific request for an open court hearing is allowed. Almost all such petitions are rejected, lawyers said.

Telcos including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea had last year requested the Supreme Court to hear in "open court" their curative petitions against an earlier order which rejected the pleas for rectification of what they called arithmetical errors in the telecom department's calculation of AGR dues. Other telecom operators filed their curative petitions earlier this year.

Of the total Rs 1.47 lakh crore of AGR dues which the telecom operators were required to pay by January 2020 as a result of the apex court's order, nearly 75% comprised interest, penalty and interest on penalty, the companies stated. The licence fee dues totalled Rs 92,642 crore while the spectrum usage charge was Rs 55,054 crore.

The DoT had back then estimated Vi's dues at Rs 58,300 crore, but the telco had self-assessed the dues at Rs 21,500 crore and has so far paid Rs 7,900 crore. Airtel's dues, as per the DoT, stood at Rs 43,980 crore, compared with the operator's own assessment of Rs 13,004 crore. Airtel has so far paid Rs 18,000 crore, which includes a Rs 5,000-crore ad hoc payment, to the government.