Supreme Court to Hear Curative Petition of Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea in AGR Case

The Supreme Court of India will hear a curative petition filed by Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea regarding the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) case on August 30, 2024. The case will be heard by a three-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud. 

The curative petition seeks the apex court to reconsider its 2019 ruling. The 2019 judgement upheld that India’s telecom operators will have to add non-core revenues while calculating their AGR. Additionally, the ruling ended a 14-year-long legal battle between telecom giants and the government. 

A curative petition is the last legal remedy available to the telecom operators against the final judgement of the SC.  

The case dates to 2005, when the definition of AGR became a bone of contention between the telecom operators and the government. AGR is a revenue sharing mechanism between the telecom operators and the government. It mandates that telecom operators pay certain licensing and spectrum usage fees to the government. The Department of Telecommunications (DOT) calculates the fee as a percentage of the AGR.  

The disagreements stem from the fact that the operators said, AGR should only include their core revenue. However, the government argued that AGR should include revenue from non-telecom services. In 2019, SC ruled in favour of the government and upheld that AGR must include non-core revenue as well. The judgement was a huge blow to Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea as their liabilities surged to nearly Rs 90,000 crore. 

Following the judgement of 2019, SC rejected a plea by filed the operators in 2021. The plea sought permission to approach the DOT. The operators complained that the dues calculated by DOT had calculation errors.