August 14, Friday – is a bad day for Mukesh Ambani. He has been caught by the Supreme Court for evading to pay the dues of his debt-ridden brother Anil Ambani’s company which currently owes more than Rs.31,000 crores to the Department of Telecom. During the arguments on the controversial Telecom AGR (Adjusted Gross Revenue) non-payment issue, the Supreme Court found that Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio is using the spectrum of Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications (RComm) since 2016. Anil’s RCommm is almost taken over by Mukesh at zero value by taking over its assets on the condition that it will also take up its liabilities.
Reliance Jio recently got a bumper of more than Rs.1.5 lakh crores by selling some portions of itself to many multinational companies such as Facebook, Google, etc. Here the role of Government is also dubious as it did not collect the dues from these big telecom players. Even after winning the case in the Supreme Court, we have seen what all dubious activities are done by the Narendra Modi Government by not collecting dues from the Ambanis, Birla, Mittal, Tata Group, etc. The strange thing is that even Opposition parties are not criticizing the Government for these dubious activities in helping Corporates!
The bench of Justices Arun Mishra, S Abdul Nazeer and M R Shah asked the counsels of Reliance Jio and RComm to place their spectrum sharing agreements on record.
The Supreme Court on Friday sought details of the spectrum sharing pact between Reliance Communications (RComm) and Reliance Jio and said as to why the company using the spectrum of the other firm cannot be asked to pay the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) related dues to the government.
“Spectrum is government property, not private, and anyone using it is liable to pay the dues”, the apex court said. The bench of Justices Arun Mishra, S Abdul Nazeer and M R Shah asked the counsels of Reliance Jio and RComm to place their spectrum sharing agreements on record.
The bench also asked the Department of Telecom (DoT) to file the requisite documents in this regard and posted the matter for further hearing on August 17.
During the hearing, senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for the resolution professional for RComm, said that the government has been informed about the spectrum sharing agreement which was done in 2016 and the required fees have been paid. He said that a part of the spectrum was lying idle with the company for a while and it has not been traded but has only shared.
The bench then said as to why it cannot ask Reliance Jio to pay the AGR related dues on behalf of RComm as the outstanding amount arises from the spectrum use and Jio has been using it for three years. When Divan stated that the lenders have approved UV Asset Reconstruction Company’s resolution plan for RComm, the bench said it wanted to know who was backing the UV ARC.
Vodafone Idea has to pay a balance of Rs 50,399 crores, while Bharti Airtel’s outstanding amount is Rs 25,976 crores, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said during a hearing on July 20.
Senior advocate K V Vishwanathan, appearing for Jio, said that the company has already paid its AGR related dues but on this question, he needs to seek instructions. He tried to explain to the bench the spectrum sharing and spectrum usage guidelines, and said that the company was following all the rules and paying the requisite fees.
The bench said again as to how Reliance Jio can escape the liability when it is using the spectrum and sharing the revenue?
The top court is expected to allow 15 years’ time for telecom firms to pay the dues, rejecting the Government’s 20-year offer. Vodafone Idea has to pay a balance of Rs 50,399 crores, while Bharti Airtel’s outstanding amount is Rs 25,976 crores, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said during a hearing on July 20.
Now Supreme Court is looking into the dues of bankruptcy-facing firms like Anil Ambani’s RComm (whose spectrum is being used by Mukesh Ambani’s Jio), Videocon and former Finance Minister Chidambaram’s bribery scam-hit Aircel.
With PTI inputs…
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It is indeed a unfortunate situation.Mukesh should have make payment of liabilities of R.COM in terms of agreements.The government should have taken hard steps for recovery,come what may.The country will celebrate 75 years of independence after two years.The irony is we the people of the country become charitable and sentimental while voting and opposition in parliament most of the times remains weak which is unhealty for a strong democracy.All big houses are the most benificieries NOT COMMON MEN…SORRY SIR
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If the government pushes the telcos to repay AGR dues immediately then only JIO will survive in the long run which is bad for a economy like India.. in order to protect large scale job creators and also not create an image of anti business, industry it’s important for any government to not kill business.. do you realise if RIL, Aditya Birla, Tata etc shut shop what kind of impact it’ll have on our economy ?
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The telecom players are going to wind up shop in India in not so distant a future…already running into major losses…giving away freebies on one hand and having to bear the brunt of such taxes would not let them survive…the never ending ask of Indians in getting everything free is killing the industries worse than anything else
You are right 100% Rajarshi Chatterjee….Old habits die hard says a PROVERB….”GARIBI HATAO” HAS KILLED THE TELCOM ENTERPRISES 1) TATA DOCOMO, 2) IDEA with VODAFONE and now JIO Telecom who gave the lowest rate of phone calls to the INDIANS. This Government has no intention of collecting DUES from another Corporate House belonging to Anil Ambani – RCOMM which is liquidated and ASSETS TAKEN OVER by JIO. Courts are intervening but taking 4 years to announce.
There is no point in blaming Telcos. They should pay the existing taxes and old arrears.Supreme court is correct in pointing out the non payment of spectrum arrears when Jio took over Spectrum of Rcom. Why C&AG has not pointed this short collection in its annual reports by to the parliament. Who is responsible for this omission..such short collection amounting to thousands of crores. Now coming to telephone and datacharges are concerned they are reasonable in comparison to rates prevailing in other countries
Let us make sure that we have 4 big companies so that the rates could be competitive without leading to monopolistic tendencies.The government should regulate these companies so that public needs are met at most competitive prices
Really Really Thank you Supreme court
I bow to judiciary
Ask him to pay the vendors also who worked for him and his brother
Ask the big brother to pay the vendors who worked for Anil Ambani and left in lurch without any payment I have around 7.5 million still pending with the Anil’s company and around 2 million with Mukesh Ambani jio
What a journalism. Hatsoff to you people, i really don’t subscribe to any news pages but this one particular articles gives anyone a goosebumps. And for the people who is paying sympathy towards Airtel and other telecom companies, where were you when they were looting public? How come they have made unlimited calling, daily data, Messages, caller tunes suddenly in Rs 149 only? As far as i know that we used to pay a hectic of amount for data and that was also bit low. Hope the govt wont waste this amount of 1.5 lac crores in total.
This article is Absolutely illetrate people work.
Government is trying to give time of 20 years to telecos so that they can pay in installment.
Which corporate house can pay 30000 crore to 60000 crore in a day.
They will go bankrupt as already told by vadafone idea and lakhs will loose job.
15 years time to repay? Are you serious?
We all know they have dominated the market by their nasty game and just have their shares bought by International companies and have abundant funds readily available. Why dont we give them just 6 months?
Does a common man get 15 years to repay in such circumstances?
I know they create job opportunities but they are currently doing exceptionally well with their financial status.
Horse cannot be bolted from both the sides. You want to control the tariff, you want to share the revenue, you want to have absurdly high fee for the spectrum. All in all you want to screw every sector in the country. Allow the businesses to grow. They generate jobs and provide service. The quality of the service is so poor. Lowest tariff in the world is nothing to cheer about. It does not allow for the growth in the sector. Government must only have control to the extent that public is not exploited and leave rest to the market forces. So many companies in telecom have vanished. Daily flip flop in the policy in automobile.. Allow someone to grow for the sake of this country…
Mr. Ranjan, You are working for which Company? Where are your Blood Relatives Working?
What is your Share Holding of Companies? You seem to be too much worried for the Corporates’ Welfare!!!
Its very cheap to get personal. Try to see the larger picture in the whole episode. Mr Ranjan’s logic is reasonable. We have to ‘live and let live’. We need these companies. There are few of them in India unlike 100’s in the US who are worth more than 100 billion dollars. Its Tata Group which donated rs1500 crores during the corona outset last year for carrying out relief works.
I am not at all against genuine corporate companies. But this TATA group is the that one should not trust. Being in business and dealing B2B or B2C are fine. Why bring in the greatness in doing business that too who were successful in colonial British period itself 🤔.
See other articles in this same PGurus.
https://www.pgurus.com/cyrus-mistry-blasts-income-tax-tribunal-and-ratan-tata-controlled-tata-trustees/amp/
Your criticism of govt in the earlier part of the article is unwarranted when you yourself say that the govt gave 20 years time to repay. The only issue is the SC wants payment in 15 years. You could’ve given the amount already paid by Vodafone to bring its outstanding to around 50000 crore from about 53000 crore. Are you also saying Govt is helping P Chidu?
Your criticism of govt in the earlier part of the article is unwarranted when you yourself say that the govt gave 20 years time to repay. The only issue is the SC wants payment in 15 years. You could’ve given the amount already paid by Vodafone to bring its outstanding to around 50000 crore from about 53000 crore.
Your criticism of govt in the earlier part of the article is unwarranted when you yourself say that the govt gave 20 years time to repay. The only issue is the SC wants payment in 15 years. You could’ve given the amount already paid by Vodafone to bring its outstanding to around 50000 crore from about 53000 crore.
Opposition will do what, the mainstream media is a pillar of the government coming to protect every time.
When common man purchases consumer product on loan he pays tax & also interest. In difficult time he couldn’t pay instalment he would be harassed by bank or nbfc. Here big corporate collects tax & other charges from customer for using mobile network, why do they haven’t paid government dues, they are getting 15 years to pay dues, how government or court giving time for corporates, why do Not government take action against them,
I don’t know why people are so much worried about JIO doings.perhaps these people might be having sleepless nights
Your mind is Kurup.
It is tragedy for political reasons why should the corporates be allowed to go go scotfree without paying its validated dues both ruling and opposition keep their mouth shout eventually the burden falls on honest tax payers .In addition most of the corporates indulge in hawala trade,over invoicing, under invoicing using legal and pliable CAs to put under carpet,establishing overseas units,funding overseas educational chairs,..finally it is vicious circle to rape and vandaliseindian economic eco system..thereby they can be called economic terrorists
Shame on these banias….looting the country…
Looters are not banias. They may be muslims,christians,hindus,parsis,sikhs,buddhists….dont blame caste for few people
Thanks to supreme court and unbiased investigative media like yrs….these bania scoundrels like ambani, birla…will be caught…
The correspondent should have done full investigation before writing such rubbish. First of all the RCOM dues of 31000 crores is from the start of the company. JIO has shared spectrum only from 2016 and that too only in 1800HZ.and not all the spectrum of RCOM. Secondly JIO is ahring the spectrum by paying the fees to RCOM and RCOM continues to be the owner of the spectrum. So it is the liability of the RCOM. The case will not stand in further arguments and JIO has not to pay anything.
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Yes
First of all looks like you have totally gone wrong in understanding the problem in hand. Already the destruction of several sectors has happened in the last 6 to 7 years and telecom sector is also on the verge of getting destroyed. Sunil Mittal clearly said he had invested $25 billion till now and that he will fight till last breath to save his company. Thanks to Jio entry in 2016, with free offers and very low data or calling packages the income has reduced drastically for Airtel, idea, Vodafone and the rest of the telecom players as we know have already shut shop.
It is very easy to criticise but very very tough to build something. Only an Enterprenuer knows it and writers will not have knowledge of the pain it takes to do it.
So the govt is doing the right thing by giving them time to pay the AGR dues. In fact the telecom companies in the last 6 months did pay up around 8k to 10k crore of the AGR dues. That’s a good start and have requested the SC to allow them to pay the remaining in 15 years. I don’t see anything wrong with this and in fact if all telcoms close down and how will the govt get the revenue and how will they recover the dues ? Let’s be practical in our thinking.
Funds collected by political parties make them indebted to the corporates. The corporates grease all the parties & the media as well.
I never understood the reason for parties need of funding in hundreds of crores. Re 1.00 per head per month contribution from the people will generate Rs 138 crore per month, amounting to Rs 1656 crore per year
No need to collect from one individual.
Thanks to Supreme Court to fix these Buccaneers. Shameful that Govts play dubious games to save Corporates