Telecom Stocks Plunge Up To 40% As SC Denies Relief; Bharti Airtel Buck The Trend

Shares of telecom players such as Vodafone Idea suffered a sudden steep fall of 40 percent in morning trade on BSE on March 18 after the Supreme Court refused further relief to service providers on adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues.

Hearing the Department of Telecommunications plea, a Supreme Court bench held that no further objections to its orders would be allowed against the dues.

“Our order is clear, no further objections to be allowed against payable dues,” Justice Arun Mishra said.

Mishra also questioned the telecom companies’ self-assessment. “Where did the concept of self-assessment come in? Who permitted self-assessment without permission of the court? This is sheer contempt of court” he said.

The bench added that the DoT demand was confirmed by the court and self-assessment couldn’t be allowed when “our order clearly spells out the dues”.

The telecom index, however, was in the green at 1105 hours, with a nominal gain of 0.43 percent, supported by shares of Bharti Airtel and Sterlite Technologies, up 3.72 percent and 0.42 percent, respectively.

Shares of Vodafone Idea was 35 percent down at that time. Bharti Infratel, MTNL, Reliance Communications and GTL Infra were among the losers.

―Money Control