SC Dismisses Petitions For Recalculation Of AGR Dues: Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel Shares Decline

Shares of telecom giants Vodafone Idea Ltd and Bharti Airtel Ltd. declined up to 5.55 per cent on February 14. The stocks declined following the Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss a set of review petitions filed by the telecom companies.

Shares of Vodafone Idea declined 5.55 per cent to hit an intraday low of Rs 8.16 apiece on the NSE. On the other hand shares of Bharti Airtel fell by 0.54 per cent to trade at an intraday low of Rs 1,705.25 apiece.

The petitions filed by the telecom companies sought to overturn the apex court’s 2021 order. Earlier in 2021, the Supreme Court denied the correction of errors and unintended additions in the telecom department’s computation of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues.

The review petitions filed by the telecom companies were dismissed by a Supreme Court bench comprising the Chief Justice of India, Sanjiv Khanna, Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice Sanjay Kumar.

“We have carefully perused the review petitions as also the grounds in support thereof. In our opinion, no case for review of the order dated July. 23, 2021, passed in Miscellaneous Applications is made out. The review petitions are, accordingly, dismissed. Pending application(s), if any, shall stand disposed of,” said the bench of Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna, Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice Sanjay Kumar.

While the petitions have been dismissed a report by the Economic Times cited sources who claimed that curative petitions will be filed to challenge the dismissal. Telecom companies have also claimed that there were errors in the calculation of the AGR as some payments made by the companies were not considered while determining the outstanding dues.

After the Supreme Court rejected a plea for corrections in AGR dues demand in 2021. Telecom companies filed a new batch of petitions which were dismissed by the Supreme Court in September 2024.

At the time of writing this article, shares of Vodafone Idea traded at Rs 8.18 apiece down by 5.32 per cent and Bharti Airtel’s shares traded at Rs 1,713.8 apiece down by 0.5 per cent.