Press "Enter" to skip to content

Supreme Court likely to hear telecos’ AGR pleas on Feb 3

The Supreme Court is likely to hear the incumbent telecom companies’ modification pleas on the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) issue on February 3.

The case, in which the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has the respondent, has been tentatively listed for next Monday, according to a notice on the apex court’s website.

On January 21, the apex court had agreed to hear the pleas this next week, while it did not fix a specific date for the hearing.

Earlier this month, Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel and Tata Teleservices had moved a joint application before the SC seeking modifications to the earlier ruling that said the telecom companies should pay their AGR dues before January 23.

Separately, an internal note by DoT’s Licensing Finance Policy Wing said that it will not take any coercive action against incumbent operators in case they default on AGR dues as the deadline expired on January 23.

The telecom licensor, which is in the process of preparing a compliance report on operators’ dues, will await a final ruling from the SC before further action.

AGR dues

The companies, which had posted huge losses in the second quarter due to AGR provisioning, also sought waiving of the penalties. On January 17, in a setback to the telecom operators, the SC had dismissed their plea seeking a review of its earlier order asking the incumbents to pay a total of ₹1.47-lakh crore in past AGR dues by January 23.

Source: The Hindu