Vodafone Idea Share Price Slips Lower Ahead Of Supreme Court Hearing

The shares of Vodafone Idea slipped over 1% ahead of the Supreme Court hearing. The SC earlier this week had deferred the hearing on a plea filed by the company against the duplication of AGR dues.

The top court will now hear the matter on Oct. 13. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had requested the apex court to postpone the matter till next week.

In September, the company sought a waiver of penalty and interest on adjusted gross revenue demand of Rs 9,450 crore in its petition. The company has challeged the additional AGR demand issued by the Department of Telecommunications, which was pending until the financial year 2019.

The telecom operator argued that the demand goes beyond the scope of the apex court’s earlier ruling on AGR liabilities, as per reports. Of the total dues, Rs 2,774 crore pertains to the post-merger Vodafone Idea entity, while Rs 5,675 crore relates to liabilities of the pre-merger Vodafone Group.

Vodafone Idea stock fell as much as 1.96% during the day to Rs 9 apiece on the NSE. It was trading 0.98% lower at Rs 9.09 apiece, compared to an 0.21% decline in the benchmark Nifty 50 as of 11:06 a.m.

It had declined 4.63% in the last 12 months and 13.98% on a year-to-date basis. The total traded volume so far in the day stood at 1.7 times its 30-day average. The relative strength index was at 58.34.

Five out of the 22 analysts tracking the company have a 'buy' rating on the stock,five recommend a 'hold' and 12 suggest a 'sell', according to Bloomberg data. The 12-month analysts' consensus target price on the stock is Rs 7.24, implying a downside of 20.2%.