DoT orders no coercive action on defaulting Airtel, Voda-Idea; Pradhan says non-telcos not liable

On a day when the Supreme Court-mandated deadline for Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea to pay Rs 88,624 crore in past dues ended, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Thursday decided not to take coercive action against defaulters during pendency of their appeals in the apex court for relaxations in the order.

While Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea did not pay the dues, billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio paid Rs 195 crore to clear all outstanding against it, official sources said.

Parallelly, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the Rs 3-lakh crore sought by the DoT from non-telecom PSUs, such as GAIL, Oil India Ltd and PowerGrid, was a result of "communication gap" as these firms are not liable to pay any dues following the Supreme Court's October 24 ruling that non-telecom revenues of telecom firms should be included for considering payments of government dues.

OIL and GAIL, which were not a party to the litigation that led to the October 24 order, filed clarificatory applications in the Supreme Court.

Following the October 24 order, the DoT had sought Rs 1.47 lakh crore from Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and 13 other telecom companies. Parallelly, it raised a demand of Rs 1.72 lakh crore from gas utility GAIL India Ltd, Rs 48,000 crore from Oil India Ltd, Rs 40,000 crore from PowerGrid, Rs 15,019 crore from Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers and a few more demands on firms such as RailTel.

Official sources said the director of the licensing finance policy (LFP) wing has issued a direction that departments concerned should not take any coercive action, until further orders, against the licensees in case they fail to comply with the Supreme Court order.

Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, whose review petitions against the October 24 order was rejected by the Supreme Court last week, communicated to the DoT that they will not pay the dues by the deadline and will instead away for the outcome of the subsequent modification petition filed seeking relaxation in payments, they said.

The petition is listed for hearing in the Supreme Court next week.

Tata Communications, in which the government holds 26.12 per stake, has also made no provision for the DoT's demand of Rs 6,633 crore.

"We are in discussion with the telecom ministry. We had given them our reply (on the demand raised)," Pradhan told reporters here. "Possibly because of a communication gap, the Government of India's one department has raised such demand on PSUs under another government department."
"Where is GAIL in core telecom business? Is PGCIL in core telecom work or does Oil India do any core telecom job," he asked. "We feel there is no liability (following the October 24 Supreme Court ruling) on these companies."