The Supreme Court has adjourned the hearing on Vodafone Idea’s plea till October 27. The telecom operator’s plea challenges additional adjusted gross revenue (AGR) demands raised by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for the period up to FY 2016-17.
A bench led by Chief Justice of India BR Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran deferred the matter after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, requested more time.
“Keep it on the first day after court reopens after Diwali,” the bench said while agreeing to Mehta’s request.
Vodafone Idea challenges additional demand
The plea of Vodafone sought directions to quash the additional demand of AGR dues, saying that it belonged to the pre-2016-17 period that had been settled by the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling.
It further sought to direct the telecom department to comprehensively re-assess and reconcile all AGR dues based on the ‘Deduction Verification Guidelines’ issued on February 3, 2020.
“The action of DoT was completely unjust, unfair and arbitrary in seeking to raise additional demands despite the Supreme Court having crystallised the AGR dues and not carrying out a complete re-assessment inasmuch as, while DoT is at liberty to raise additional demands, the petitioner is not being permitted to seek correction of assessments made by DoTwhich have been thrust upon the petitioner,” the petition stated.
The telecom company claimed that errors in computation have led to duplication of entries, with certain amounts added more than once.
Earlier plea to correct calculation errors was rejected
In its October 2019 judgement, the Supreme Court had directed telecom operators to pay AGR dues to the government. Later, in September 2020, the apex court allowed the companies 10 years to clear their pending dues, with 10% to be paid every year starting March 31, 2021.
However, in July 2021, the court dismissed pleas by telecom majors, including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, that sought correction of errors in the calculation of these dues.