Bharti Airtel, others move SC on AGR calculation

A slew of telecom operators, including Bharti Airtel, have moved the Supreme Court seeking calculation of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) benefits from the date of grant of licences.
A bench comprising Justices R V Raveendran and H L Gokhale issued notices to the Department of Telecom and directed it to file a reply in four weeks.
The operators -- Datacom Solutions, Bharti Hexacom, Idea Cellular and Bharti Airtel -- challenged the orders of the sectoral tribunal TDSAT, which had said that the benefits of calculating AGR would only accrue from the date of filing petitions before it.
Earlier, on May 7, 2010, passing an order on the plea of Vodafone Essar South, RailTel Corporation, S Tel, Reliance Communications, Reliance Telecom and Datacom Solution, TDSAT said, "The benefit of the said decision (calculating AGR) shall be available to the new licencees in terms of order dated August 30, 2007, from the dates of filing of petitions respectively..."
"The date when a petitioner approached this tribunal is the date on which it registered its grievance and sought redressal. Therefore, we make this order effective for each petitioner from the date it approached the tribunal," it said.
Under the National Telecom Policy, operators have to pay 15 per cent of their revenue to the telecom department as revenue share or licence fee under the AGR regime.
Earlier, there was a dispute between the operators and DoT over the kind of income which should be included for calculation of AGR and the matter was referred to the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal.
Later, passing an order on August 30, 2007, TDSAT held that income arising from interest income on savings, capital gains, dividends and foreign exchange need not be considered as part of AGR.