A day after the Supreme Court threatened to hold India's telecom operators in contempt for not complying with its order to pay thousands of crores worth of dues within the deadline and the government issuing a directive to clear them, Vodafone Idea Ltd. said that it's assessing the amount it will be able to pay to the telecom department.
“The Company is currently assessing the amount that it will be able to pay to DoT (Department of Telecommunications) towards the dues calculated based on AGR (Adjusted Gross Revenue), as interpreted by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in its order dated Oct. 24, 2019,” the beleaguered mobile operator said in an exchange filing. “The Company proposes to pay the amount so assessed in the next few days.”
Vodafone Idea, which is staring at statutory dues of over Rs 53,000 crore, hoped for a favourable outcome in a separate application that it has filed with the court. “As disclosed in the Company's financial statements for quarter ending December 31, 2019, the Company's ability to continue as a going concern is essentially dependent on a positive outcome of the application for modification of the Supplementary Order.”
The Supreme Court yesterday criticised the Department of Telecommunications and telecom companies for failing to abide by its judgment dated Oct. 19, 2019, in which it had ruled that non-core revenue must be included while calculating levies. That ended a 14-year-old legal battle between mobile operators and the government on definition of AGR, resulting in liabilities of over Rs 92,000 crore as AGR dues for the operators.
The top court had then granted three months' time to the companies to deposit the dues but the companies sought a review of the judgment, which was dismissed by the apex court days before the deadline—Jan. 23—was to end. A top court bench headed Justice Arun Mishra also expressed anger at the telecom department's directive that asked for no coercive action on firms failing to make the payment by the deadline.
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The court also directed the companies to make payments before March 17, when it will next take up the case for hearing, and asked their managing directors and directors to appear in court if they fail to do so.
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