Blow to Bharti Airtel, Voda Idea: SC rejects appeal against AGR definition

We are disappointed by the verdict of the Hon'ble Supreme Court, Airtel says in a statement

Supreme Court on Thursday rejected telecom companies’ appeal against the Union government’s definition of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR). The apex court will later decide on the timeframe for the operators to pay AGR.

The definition of AGR has been a long standing issue between the Department of Telecommunications and the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs), in particular, on some items that the TSPs strongly believed should not be included while calculating AGR since these are not part of the core telecommunications services.

AGR is a measure of income calculated from a company's gross income and is used to determine the