Jio and Airtel shared spectrum with bankrupt telcos
The Supreme Court exempted Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio from paying around Rs 40 billion in past fees for using the spectrum of other bankrupt telcos. In particular, Jio uses spectrum from Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications (RCom), which has liquidity problems, while Airtel uses spectrum owned by Videocon and Aircel.
“The co-operator telecommunications companies cannot bear the responsibility for the above AGR fees,” the court said in its detailed ruling on the payment of the fees.
However, the exemption refers specifically to shared spectrum used by companies and does not include their original fees.
On Tuesday, the high court gave telecommunications companies 10 years to settle huge fees owed to the government, called adjusted gross income (AGR), amounting to about 1.6 million lakh rupees, in staggered payments. A three-judge bench of the high court said telecommunications companies must pay 10 percent of fees by March 31 next year.
The court also said that the issue of spectrum sales by telecommunications companies facing insolvency proceedings will be decided by the National Company Law Court (NCLT).
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