The Supreme Court (SC) will pronounce its judgement on telecom operators’ plea seeking direction for correction of errors in adjusted gross revenue (AGR) calculation on July 22, 2021.
Recently, the SC had reserved its order on telcos including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea Limited and Tata Teleservices seeking correction of errors in demand.
The operators had told the court that rectification is different from reassessment or recalculation of AGR dues. However, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) was hesitant to revise its raised demand or rectify errors unless allowed by the apex court. As per Airtel, the excess demand due to these errors was to the tune of Rs 59.32 billion of principal amount, which would have an overall impact of over four times on the total principal amount due to imposition of interest, penalty and interest on penalty. Meanwhile, Vodafone Idea also said it was not seeking any reassessment of the calculations, but only seeking correction in these arithmetical errors. Further, terming rectification as a matter of right in any assessment or reassessment, Tata Teleservices said the judgment only prohibited reassessment and not rectification of calculative errors.
