SC Pulls up Centre and Telecom Companies for AGR Reassessment, Threatens to Jail Company MDs

The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday pulled up the BJP-led Central Government and telecom companies for doing a self-assessment or reassessment of the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) dues fixed by the apex court in its verdict given October 24, 2019.

The SC, which was also anguished by newspaper articles on the AGR issue, said all managing directors of telecom companies will be personally responsible and held for contempt of court for any such future write-ups hiding the truth.

A bench of Justice Arun Mishra, Justice S.A. Nazeer and Justice M.R. Shah refused to take up the Centre's plea for allowing telecom companies to pay AGR dues in 20 years, saying the application will be taken up after two weeks.

“The time frame of 20 years is unreasonable. The telecom companies have to clear all dues mentioned in the judgment,” the bench said, adding that it had settled all AGR dues after hearing telecom companies and the government then had fought tooth and nail for interests and penalties.

The bench said it will summon the secretary and desk officer of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) who permitted telecom companies to do a self-assessment of AGR dues.

“Exercise of self-assessment of AGR dues by telecom companies cannot be permitted even in its wildest dreams,” the bench said.

“Won't tolerate this. Companies want to hoodwink us. If required we will summon the MDs of all the telecom companies and send them to jail from here itself. These companies are the usurpers of public money and don't even want to pay a fraction of revenue earned,” Justice Arun Mishra was quoted by news agency IANS as saying.

On Monday, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) moved the Supreme Court seeking its approval for a 20-year window for payment of around Rs 1.47 lakh crore AGR dues, as adverse functioning of the telecom firms could put a negative impact on the economy and consumers across the country.

The apex court said serious fraud was being committed by telecom companies by asserting to do self-assessment of AGR dues and that its judgment was final and to be followed in letter and spirit.

“We will be party to fraud if we allow self-assessment of AGR dues by telecom companies,” the bench said, adding, that it could not permit encroachment of its powers by allowing the self-assessment.

The court also said that newspaper articles will not be able to influence its decision and that it will draw contempt proceedings against managing directors of telecom companies if they publish “fake news” against the court on payment of AGR dues.

“Any future newspaper article hiding truth from public on telecom case will make MDs of telecos personally responsible,” the bench said.

On October 24, 2019, the apex court had ruled that statutory dues need to be calculated by including non-telecom revenues in the AGR of telecom companies. It had upheld the AGR definition formulated by the DoT and termed the nature of objections raised by the telecom service providers as “frivolous”.

With inputs from PTI