The Supreme Court (SC) has scheduled the hearing of the adjusted gross revenues (AGR) case on Monday, July 19. Last September, the apex court had reaffirmed dues payable by the telecom companies, particularly, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (VI).

Bharti Airtel’s AGR dues at the time were Rs 43,000 crore while for Vodafone Idea it was over Rs 58,000 crore. In the critical judgement, the SC had granted an interim relief to telcos in the form of a staggered payment schedule of over 10 years.

However, the two telecom majors had moved the SC earlier this year in January again pointing out that there were a number of errors that were made in arriving at those AGR dues of Rs 43,000 crore and Rs 58,000 crore for Bharti and Vodafone Idea, respectively.

Both of them have argued that there have been instances of double counting, there have been payments made that haven't been accounted for, there are arithmetic errors and all of these anomalies, inaccuracies have led to these gargantuan figures.

The figure, instead, that Bharti has offered in terms of reassessment from Rs 43,000 crore as per them, it is nearly Rs 13,000 crore. As for Vodafone Idea, they claim that while the figure that has been put out by the apex court is Rs 58,000 crore, the figure that is actually owed by them as per their own assessment is about Rs 21,000 crore.

Now, these are the figures that they have put out, they put out these arguments, these rationales before the apex court. It is yet to see how the SC responds.

This would be the first hearing that will be there in the AGR matter and perhaps that's when one can get more clarity on the way forward and the fate that awaits these companies going forward in terms of these massive figures that they are looking at, in terms of AGR views.

Watch the accompanying video of CNBC-TV18’s Ashmit Kumar for more details.

Also Read: Vodafone's AGR EMI will drive it to financial crisis in absence of relief: CLSA

(Edited by : Ajay Vaishnav)

First Published:Jul 16, 2021 2:11 PM IST