In Short:
The Supreme Court will hear curative petitions from telecom companies like Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel on Friday regarding the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) case. They are appealing against a previous ruling that imposed penalties and interest related to AGR dues. The companies seek corrections for errors in the telecom department’s calculations but aren’t challenging the license fee itself.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court is set to hear a series of curative petitions on Friday, filed by several telecom operators including Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel, as part of the ongoing Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) case.
The curative petitions from Tata Teleservices, Sistema Shyam, and Huges Communications are also on the agenda, with a Bench consisting of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice Sanjiv Khanna, and Justice BR Gavai set to deliberate on the matter at 1:30 PM in chambers.
Nature of Curative Petitions
A curative petition typically undergoes judicial examination in chambers, unless a specific request for a public hearing is granted. Legal experts note that the majority of such petitions tend to be dismissed.
Previous Requests for Open Court Hearings
In the previous year, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea had requested the Supreme Court to consider their curative petitions in an open court setting, challenging an earlier ruling that precluded corrections for what they identified as arithmetical errors in the telecommunications department’s calculations regarding AGR dues. Other telecom operators filed their curative petitions earlier this year as well.
Aims of the Telecommunications Companies
The telecom operators, through their individual curative pleas, are not disputing the imposition of license fees as defined by the apex court. Instead, they seek to rectify the October 2019 judgment to the extent of addressing the “imposition of penalty and interest on penalty.” Furthermore, they are advocating for the correction of manifest, clerical, and arithmetical errors in the provisional demands made by the Department of Telecommunications.
