Can’t expect court to rewrite its judgment

The share prices of telecom companies declined by over 1-10 percent on Friday after the Supreme Court of India rejected Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and Tata Teleservices’ applications seeking re-computation of the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) – related dues. Shares of Vodafone Idea were down 10 percent, Bharti Airtel fell over one percent, while Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) declined five percent.

“The point is that all these errors must have existed right from the beginning, the DoT may have known of them, telecom companies must have known of them. If they did not point out to the Supreme Court much earlier on then, the case was yet at large before the court. Everything that you might be able to argue, you ought to argue at the first stage, you can’t hold back things and come back later and keep asking for a re-writing of a judgement. I think the Supreme Court has more than enough, this may not prevent other administrative or legislative measures but you can’t expect the Supreme Court to keep re-write its judgement. Telcos should have raised it right from the beginning” says senior advocate Sanjay Hegde after the judgement was passed. CT Bureau