The Supreme Court on Monday accepted the government’s suggestion to preserve status quo on fresh demands or recoveries in between it and Vodafone Idea till the one particular-time spectrum charge (OTSC) case is ultimately decided in February.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta recommended ahead of a bench led by Justice Ashok Bhushan that the government wants to re-compute the demands and in the meantime status quo orders be passed “ with no fresh demands or payments by any side either” till the disposal of the case.
Senior Harish Salve, appearing for Vodafone Idea, accepted the suggestion, terming it “fair”.
The apex court noted the government’s proposal and posted the matter for final hearing in February.
However, the judges rejected the SG’s request to remain the TDSAT judgement as was accomplished in the case of Reliance Communications and Loop Mobile (each undergoing insolvency proceedings).
Mehta stated that “even the present case regarding liability to pay OTSC is the same as that in the RComm and Loop Mobile.”
The government has challenged a portion of the TDSAT’s July 4, 2019 order that held as unsustainable the DoT demands for OTSC on spectrum allotted beyond get started-up spectrum and up to the contracted limit of 6.2 MHz. Besides, setting aside the DoT demands for OTSC on spectrum allotted in between 4.4 – 6.2 MHz, the TDSAT had also ruled that the government can charge OTSC only prospectively from January 1, 2013 (the date on which the government notified this choice) and that also only on administratively allocated airwaves beyond 6.2 Mhz.
After the TDSAT’s choice final year, the burden of OTSC for operators like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea had come down by much more than 60%.
According to the appeal, the government policies in the quick altering telecom and technologies sectors are adopted and tailored from time to time primarily based upon the situations and these policies had been sometime advisable by an independent and specialised regulatory physique Trai soon after open consultations with stakeholders. “That the respondents had not paid for the intrinsic value of the spectrum, a valuable natural resource held by the State in trust for the people of India (as held in the 2G Judgement). As such, such value had to be recovered in the public interest,” the appeal stated.
DoT had levied the OTSC retrospectively from July 1, 2008 and raised a total demand of about Rs 25,000 crore on nine telcos in 2013 for spectrum held beyond 6.2 MHz. Vodafone Idea had moved the tribunal against the government for raising a demand for Rs 3,599.4 crore as the OSTC.
The choice to levy OTSC was taken by the UPA government in the wake of the SC in February 2012 cancelling 122 telecom 2G licences provided by the then telecom minister A Raja. While the SC cancelled the licenses, due to the fact of the furore it designed as these had been provided at 2001 prices of Rs 1,658 crore, that a charge was levied on spectrum allocated beyond the contracted quantity.