Bharti Airtel moves Supreme Court for recalculation of AGR dues

Bharti Airtel moves Supreme Court for recalculation of AGR dues

Telecom major says miscomputation and arithmetical errors have resulted into the spike in total dues

Indian telecom major Bharti Airtel has approached the Supreme Court seeking lowering payable dues as per aggregated gross revenue (AGR) fees which it currently owes to the Department of Telecommunication (DoT). It has pleaded for recall of earlier orders passed by the apex court in this regard. The telecom has cited it as "miscomputation of dues", and pointing it as "arithmetical errors" and requested for the adjustment of fees.

According to the DoT's assessment, Airtel's total due was Rs. 43,980 crore, out of which Rs 25,976 crore is still due. However, as per telecom's self-assessment, it claimed that it owes to the government Rs. 13,004 crores as dues out of which the telecom claimed to have already paid Rs. 18,004 crore.

"The applicants pray that the respondents be permitted to complete the process of assessments after considering the representations made by the applicants in this respect (including for the mathematical and calculation errors) and thereby determine the amounts due and payable," Airtel's petition said.

In the plea filed before the Supreme Court, Airtel defended that AGR payments made previously were not taken into consideration by the DoT while raising demands for different circles and years.

The petition also seeks "limited clarification" or modification or recall of the orders dated 18 March 2020, 20 September 2020, and paragraph 38 (i) of the order dated 1 September 2020. Firstly, direct that the said amounts mentioned in the Respondent's Statement, be taken as the final amounts; and secondly, preclude the Respondent from proceeding with and completing the departmental assessments and finalizing the amounts due and payable.

The plea by Airtel states that the earlier orders of the Supreme Court directing that the amounts stated should be treated as final and that there should be no further process of assessment, "are ex facie a mistake of this Hon'ble Court".

According to Airtel's submitted to the Court, mistakes are; first, the process of assessment of the past dues had admittedly not been finalized/completed; and second, the Respondent's said annexed Chart had expressly stated that the amounts mentioned therein were based on "Preliminary Assessments" and were expressly stated to be "subject to further revisions due to departmental assessments".

Along with this, the petition also contains the averments that duplication in revenue addition by adding it twice from different audit reports, errors of omission and commission led to the rise in AGR dues, alleging that an incorrect interest rate was applied to raise demands for Spectrum Usage Charge (SUC).

The Supreme Court on 1 September 2020 gave telecom companies 10 years to repay their adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues, putting an end to a case that was being watched closely for its implications for the telecommunications sector. The Court had asked NCLT to decide on spectrum sale under Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016.

It had subsequently exempted the payment on entire past dues of shared spectrum, which saved Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio from paying AGR dues worth over Rs 40,000 crore.

While giving the 10-years time period, from 1 April 2021 to 21 March 2031, a bench of Justices Arun Mishra, S Abdul Nazeer and MR Shah had directed telecoms to pay 10 per cent of the AGR dues upfront.