After SC AGR ruling, Tata Tele pays Rs 2,197 cr, Voda Rs 2,500 cr to govt

Earlier, Bharti Airtel made payment of Rs 10,000 crore to DoT towards statutory dues

With the Supreme Court coming down heavily on telecom firms, Tata Teleservices and Vodafone Idea on Monday made the payment of a portion of their Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) dues to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) towards license fee and spectrum usage charges.

While Tata Teleservices paid Rs 2,197 crore to government to settle AGR) dues, Vodafone Idea said that they will immediately pay Rs 2,500 crore and another Rs 1,000 cr before end of this week.

The development comes after the Supreme Court on Monday rejected Vodafone Idea's proposal to pay Rs 2,500 crore by the end of the day and Rs 1,000 crore by Friday against AGR dues. The court also refused the company's plea that no coercive action be taken against it. 

Vodafone Idea Counsel Mukul Rohatgi said that the company will have to shut shop if bank guarantee is encashed and that scenario will not help employees or its 300 million subscribers. "The worst case is if bank guarantee is encashed tomorrow. Ï told the company to scrap the barrel and they paid Rs 2,500 to government," he said while speaking to CNBC-TV18. "I have examined cases of Oil India, Power grid, GAIL. They have no subscribers. The demand of the telecom department on them is absurd. Court asked PSU companies to go to TDSAT," he said.

Meanwhile, Bharti Airtel too made payment of Rs 10,000 crore to DoT towards statutory dues. The company said it will make payment on balance amount after self-assessment exercise. "The...amount of Rs 10,000 crore has been paid on behalf of Bharti Airtel, Bharti Hexacom, and Telenor," the Sunil Mittal led company said in a letter to the DoT earlier today. As per the government's assessment, Airtel owes nearly Rs 35,586 crore in statutory dues, including licence fee and spectrum usage charge.

The court had on October 24 last year ordered that non-telecom revenues should be included in the AGR for calculating statutory dues such as license fee and spectrum charges.

The DoT calculated that Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and others owe as much as Rs 1.47 trillion in past dues, including penalties and interest, while non-telecom firms, who had taken some licence from it, owed another Rs 2.65 trillion.

On January 16, a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra dismissed petitions of telecom firms seeking review of that order saying it did not find any "justifiable reason" to entertain them.