Firms had sought probability to stage out “arithmetical errors” in calculations.
The Supreme Court on July 23 dismissed features filed by fundamental telecom companies akin to Voda-Idea and Airtel for a possibility to place their grievances about “arithmetical errors” of their Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) dues sooner than the Department of Telecom (DoT).
They had sought a risk to acceptable the errors inside the calculations.
A Special Bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao, S. Abdul Nazeer and M.R. Shah pronounced the order.
In a September 2020 judgment, the best courtroom had ordered that the annual 10% instalments for price of AGR dues would begin from April 1, 2021, as a lot as March 31, 2031.
In the ultimate listening to, Airtel, Voda-Idea and Tata have been amongst quite a lot of the companies that assured the courtroom that they paid “more than” their anticipated instalment.
However, Voda-Idea had complained in regards to the “arithmetical errors” inside the calculation of AGR dues.
“If I have paid ₹1, only 50 paise is reflected… In one entry, the actual payment made is ₹155 crore, payment shown in DOT is ₹153 crore,” senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, for Voda, had submitted.
The Bench had, however, reminded the telecom companies in regards to the particular bar imposed by the Supreme Court on the re-assessment of AGR dues.
“The Supreme Court has said not just once, but twice and thrice that the amounts cannot be recomputed,” the Bench had addressed Mr. Rohatgi inside the listening to.
“The figure is not cast in stone. The court has power to correct arithmetical errors. My dues are ₹58,000 crore. We are about to go under. Our debts are ₹1.8 lakh crore. Let us place our calculations before DoT, let them take a call,” Mr. Rohatgi had urged.
Senior advocate A.M. Singhvi, for Airtel, had echoed Mr. Rohatgi’s submission for a possibility to place the calculations sooner than the DoT.
Senior advocate Arvind Datar, for Tata, too had submitted they weren’t in search of a recomputation of their dues, nonetheless solely a risk with DoT to rectify positive errors in calculation.
In September closing 12 months, the best courtroom had allowed telecom companies 10 years’ time to pay their AGR dues to the federal authorities. The authorities had initially proposed a 20-year “formula” for them to make staggered funds of the dues that had run as a lot as ₹1.43 lakh crore for the time being.
An earlier October 24, 2019, judgment of the courtroom inside the AGR case had initially wanted the telecom companies to make their repayments in three months.
