New Delhi: In a huge blow to the telcos, the Supreme Court has dismissed telecom companies, including Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel, plea to re-compute adjusted gross revenue (AGR).
A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and comprising justices Sanjiv Khanna and BR Gavai said the applications for listing the curative petitions in open court are rejected. The curative petitions are usually decided by judges in the chamber. The telcos had requested the apex court for a hearing in the open court on their plea.
The apex court, in its order dated August 30, which was uploaded recently, said: “We have gone through the curative petitions and the connected documents.
In our opinion, no case is made out within the parameters indicated in the decision of this Court in Rupa Ashok Hurra v Ashok Hurra (2002)”. “The curative petitions are dismissed”, the apex court said in its order.
Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel, and other telecom companies had moved the apex court through curative petitions against the court's October 2019 verdict, which directed them to pay the government Rs 92,000 crore within three months.
In January 2020, the apex court dismissed the review petitions filed by the telecom companies against the October 2019 judgment.
The apex court in July 2021, had dismissed a plea seeking correction of errors in the demand of AGR dues. The telecom companies had then moved the issue to the top court claiming there were several errors in arriving at the AGR dues, which totalled over Rs 1 lakh crore.
The present curative petitions were against a September 2020 order requiring payment of AGR dues over 10 years; 10 per cent of the total by March 31 every year.
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