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Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel likely to file review petition on AGR

The companies may also seek a relaxing for 3 months timeframe to make payments after the Secretaries panel declined to offer any breather

Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel likely to file review petition on AGR

Vodafone. (Photo: iStock)

Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea are set to file a review petition in the Supreme Court on Friday against the AGR judgment of the top court last month. Under their petition, both the companies are likely to seek a waive off in the penalties, interest component of their dues, reports said.

The companies may also seek a relaxing for 3 months timeframe to make payments after the Secretaries panel declined to offer any breather in view of the fact that any curative petition has to be filed within a month, reports added.

However, no official statements have been released from any of the telecom companies so far.

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Any review petition, in this case, is to be made within a period of a month of the original verdict was delivered. As per the original verdict, which was delivered on October 24, companies have to make their due payments by January 24. Both have made Rs 74,000 crore losses on account of Rs 53000 crore provisioning for these dues payments.

Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and other telecom companies owe the government as much as Rs 1.47 lakh crore in past statutory dues, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told Parliament on Wednesday, adding that there is no proposal at present to waive interest and penalties on such dues.

In replies to questions in the Lok Sabha, Prasad had said telecom companies owe the government Rs 92,642 crore in unpaid licence fee, and another Rs 55,054 crore in outstanding spectrum usage charge (SUC).

In the case of Bharti Airtel, the liabilities add up to nearly Rs 35,586 crore, of which Rs 21,682 crore is licence fee and another Rs 13,904 crore is the spectrum usage charge dues (not including the dues of Telenor and Tata Teleservices).

In the case of Vodafone Idea, this number stands at a cumulative Rs 53,038 crore, including Rs 24,729 crore of SUC dues and Rs 28,309 crore in licence fee.

The government made it clear that it is not considering any proposal on waiver of penalties and interest on outstanding licence fee based on adjusted gross revenue (AGR), or on extending the timelines for telecom companies to pay up their statutory dues.

“No such proposal is under consideration of the government as on date,” Prasad said while responding to specific questions on whether the government proposes to provide a waiver for penalties and interest on the non-payment of license fee on AGRs by telecom operators and also on whether it is consider ing extending the time limit for the payment of license fee, penalty, interest and other dues.

(With input from agencies)

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