A day immediately after Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea also moved the Supreme Court looking for modification of its order so that the division of telecommunications (DoT) can take into account its submissions relating to arithmetical errors in the calculations relating to its adjusted gross income (AGR) dues. The corporation has stated in its petition that the calculations produced by DoT had errors like double counting, not taking into consideration payments currently produced, not adjusting for interconnect payments, and so forth. It stated that the excess demand due to these errors is to the tune of Rs 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.
Vodafone has stated that regardless of its requests to the DoT to right the blunders, the latter has not performed it hence causing prejudice to it. The corporation has produced it clear in its petition that it is not looking for any reassessment of the calculations, some thing which the SC order has barred, or raising any dispute, but only looking for correction in these arithmetical errors. The petition of Bharti Airtel filed a day earlier is also on comparable grounds.
The DoT has estimated that the AGR dues of Vodafone Idea is Rs 58,254 crore even though the company’s personal assessment so far is of Rs 21,533 crore. In the case of Bharti Airtel also even though the DoT’s estimate is of Rs 43,980 crore, Bharti’s personal estimate is of Rs 13,004 crore. In its plea submitted by means of counsel Mahesh Agarwal, Vodafone Idea has elaborated that errors have crept in as the DoT has not accounted/adjusted payments produced by it to the tune of Rs 242.19 crore even though issuing the demands and also deduction has not been offered on PSTN associated get in touch with charges (access charges) and of roaming charges in fact paid to other operators (resulting in a larger demand of Rs 4,723 crore), apart from there becoming double counting of some income products amounting to Rs 966 crore.
In some instances, DoT has failed to give credit for the payments produced by means of demand drafts/bank remittance towards licence charge, it has stated. “In many cases, they are in the nature of pure calculation errors. The correction sought are not disputes but only correction of manifest errors in the earlier demands, which can be easily checked by DoT and given effect after a simple process of verification. They do not involve any question of law or interpretation of the definition of AGR and are matters that are independent of October 24, 2019 judgment,” the corporation has stated.
“The court be pleased to modify its direction at para 38(i) of the judgment and allow the applicant to seek the correction of manifest/clerical/arithmetic errors apparent on record of the demands preliminary assessed by DoT,” it has stated.