SC Dismisses AGR Review Petitions Filed By Telecom Companies

The Supreme Court, on January 16, dismissed the review pleas from telecom companies that sought relief on interest and penalty payments in connection to the verdict on Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR), CNBC-TV18 reports.

The deadline for telecom companies to meet the license fee dues as per the apex court’s AGR judgement is January 23. The report noted that telecom companies are free to file curative petitions against the dismissal of their AGR review petitions.

These petitions were moved by the companies after the SC’s judgement upholding the definition of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) as decided by the Department of Telecom (DoT). As many as 15 telecom companies would now have to pay dues totalling to Rs 1.47 lakh crore.

The report also noted that after the Supreme Court’s AGR judgement, several non-telecom public sector undertakings (PSUs) like GAIL, DMRC, Power Grid and RailTel were affected as the DoT wrote to them seeking repayment of AGR fee dues. These companies would likely file fresh review pleas. The total dues that the non-telecom PSUs are staring at comes up to a total of around Rs 4.6 lakh crore.

Earlier this month, the SC also rejected the telecom companies’ plea to conduct an open-court hearing.―Money Control