AGR dues cannot be recomputed: Supreme Court reserves order

The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday maintained its stand on the government’s adjusted gross revenue (AGR) demand from telecom firms, observing that it had multiple times said the dues can’t be recomputed. It, however, reserved the order.

Three telecom firms — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Tata Teleservices — had moved the apex court seeking correction in calculation errors in the Department of Telecommunications’ (DoT’s) AGR demand.

Vodafone Idea counsel Mukul Rohatgi said the AGR figures were not cast in stone and the SC has the powers to correct the arithmetic error, while clarifying that no one was blaming DoT for this as these are arithmetical entries.