The Department of Telecom on Thursday moved the Supreme Court searching for to recover Videocon Telecommunications’ adjusted gross income (AGR) dues of Rs 1,376 crore from Bharti Airtel.
The DoT told the apex court that it had raised the demand as per the SC’s September 1 judgment. DoT had raised the demand to Bharti Airtel to spend AGR dues of Videocon, which had traded its whole spectrum (30 MHz in 1800 MHz band) to Airtel in 2016. While the DoT had requested Airtel to comply with the SC directions, the teleco had questioned the DoT’s demand. Airtel had responded vide letters of October 16, 2020 and March 4, 2020 saying that “the DoT letter has no basis in law” and “Airtel cannot be held liable for Videocon’s past dues”, the division mentioned in its affidavit to the apex court.
With regard to trading of spectrum, DoT submitted that the letter approving the trading clearly says that the licensor reserves the ideal to recover the dues which had been not recognized to the parties at the time of the helpful date of trade from the purchaser or seller, jointly or severally at the discretion as per the trading recommendations of 2015.
The telecom service providers that are sharing the spectrum are expected to spend AGR based dues just after taking into consideration the more spectrum price as effectively as more income generated from the use of that shared spectrum, the affidavit filed by way of Amit Katoch, deputy director common (LFP), DoT, stated.
The division also informed the SC that it has been in a position to recover AGR dues of only Rs 30,289.59 crore against the total demand of Rs 1,69,048.65 crore. While the Bharti Airtel group had so far paid Rs 18,004 crore against total dues of Rs 43,980 crore, Vodafone has paid Rs 7,854.37 crore against Rs 58,254 crore demand raised by the division. However, Bharti’s personal estimate of AGR dues is Rs 13,004 crore and Vodafone’s company’s personal assessment so far is of Rs 21,533 crore.
Tata group and Reliance Jio Infocomm have paid Rs 4,197.37 crore (against total dues of Rs 16,798 crore) and Rs 195.18 crore (total demand of Rs 70.53 crore), respectively, the DoT mentioned.
Meanwhile, the SC is however to take a get in touch with on hearing the applications filed by Airtel, Vodafone Idea and other folks searching for modification of its order so that the DoT can take into account its submissions concerning arithmetical errors in the calculations concerning its AGR dues. The businesses have mentioned that the calculations created by DoT had errors like double counting, not taking into consideration payments currently created, not adjusting for interconnect payments and so on.
Vodafone has created it clear that it was not searching for any reassessment of the calculations, one thing which the SC order has barred, or raising any dispute, but only searching for correction in these arithmetical errors.