- Vodafone Idea shares rose over 3% after Bombay High Court ruling on spectrum charges
- Court struck down Centre's retrospective one-time spectrum charge imposed in 2012
- Government cannot alter telecom licence financial terms years after granting them
Shares of Vodafone Idea Ltd. are rallying in trade today after the Bombay High Court struck down the Centre's one-time spectrum charge imposed on the telecom providers. The High Court ruled that the government could not retrospectively alter the financial terms of telecom licences years after they had been granted.
Vodafone Idea shares rose as much as 3.12%, and are currently trading around 1.60% higher at Rs 14.63 apiece as of 9:20 am.
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A division bench of Justice M.S. Sonak and Justice Jitendra Jain set aside the government's 2012 decisions introducing the levy and quashed the consequential demand notices issued to the telecom operators. The court also directed authorities to return the bank guarantees furnished by the companies pursuant to interim orders.
The dispute arose after the Department of Telecommunications sought to levy a one-time charge on spectrum holdings beyond 6.2 MHz, with the policy announced in 2012 but made applicable retrospectively from July 1, 2008. Airtel had disclosed a demand of Rs 5,201 crore, while Idea Cellular had separately disclosed a retrospective demand of about Rs 1,069 crore.
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