Stocks drop 4% after the Supreme Court rejects Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea's arguments on AGR dues miscalculation.

Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel had claimed that the DoT's AGR estimates contained serious mistakes and neglected to take into consideration payments that had already been made.

According to sources, the Supreme Court of India on Friday rejected review petitions that telecom companies, such as Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel, had sought to rectify the way their adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues were calculated. The corporations have no further legal choices because this ruling supports the apex court's 2021 decision.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) was accused by telecom companies of making serious mistakes in its AGR calculations by neglecting to include payments that had already been made. The Supreme Court, however, has recently reiterated its position and rejected any recalculation.

Telecom companies' stock fell after the Supreme Court's decision. Bharti Airtel shares dropped 0.51% to ₹1,705.00 on the BSE, while Vodafone Idea shares dropped as much as 4.16% to ₹8.29 each.

AGR Dues Case
The Supreme Court denied telecom companies' requests for adjustments to AGR dues in July 2021, which is when the controversy began. The companies argued that over ₹1 lakh crore in overstated dues were the result of computation errors.

Their curative pleas were denied earlier in 2022, and in September 2023, a similar plea concerning the recalculation of AGR dues was rejected.

Following an earlier decision that rejected their plea to correct alleged arithmetic errors in the Department of Telecommunications' assessment of AGR dues, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea asked the Supreme Court in 2022 to hear their curative petitions in a "open court."

According to a media source earlier this month, the Union government was considering waiving telecom companies' AGR dues. According to the source, the government was thinking about "waiving 50% of interest and 100% of penalties and interest on penalties," which comprise the majority of the AGR dues imposed on telecom companies like Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel following the 2019 Supreme Court ruling.

At 11:35 AM, Bharti Airtel shares were down 0.15% at ₹1,711.10 a share on the BSE, while Vodafone Idea shares were down 4.05% at ₹8.30 per share.