The Supreme Court on Wednesday mentioned it will hear each Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea’s pleas searching for recalculation of their adjusted gross income (AGR) dues in two weeks.
Senior counsel Abhishek Singhvi and Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, respectively, pointed out their situations for early hearing prior to a bench led by Justice S Abdul Nazeer, which mentioned that the case will be listed for hearing prior to an proper bench soon after two weeks.
Both telcos had in January moved the apex court searching for directions to the division of telecommunications (DoT) to recalculate AGR dues, citing “mathematical errors” in calculation of the outstanding quantity by the division.
While DoT had estimated that Bharti Airtel owed Rs 43,980 crore, whilst Airtel’s personal estimate place the dues at Rs 13,004 crore. For Vodafone Idea, the numbers had been Rs 58,254 crore against its self-assessment of Rs 21,533 crore whilst for Tata Teleservices, DoT estimates pegged the quantity at `16,798 crore against Rs 2,197 crore.
According to Airtel, DoT has produced many arithmetical errors in its calculations and the influence of this is substantial. “There are a number of apparent arithmetic errors in DoT’s demands, such as duplications in revenue addition, errors of omission and errors of commission, which have nothing to do with the inclusion or exclusion of a particular head of revenue (taking the heads of revenue as final as per the AGR judgement dated October 24, 2019),” Airtel stated.
VI in its petition stated that the calculations produced by DoT had errors like double counting, not thinking of payments currently produced, not adjusting for interconnect payments and so forth. It mentioned that the excess demand due to these errors is to the tune of `5,932 crore of principal quantity, which would have an all round influence of more than 4 instances on the total principal quantity due to imposition of interest, penalty and interest on penalty.
The organization had produced it clear in its petition that it is not searching for any reassessment of the calculations, anything which the SC order has barred, or raising any dispute, but only searching for correction in these arithmetical errors.