Airtel, Vodafone asked for 15 years to pay the sum. The carriers, however, will have to pay 10% of the pending dues by March 31, 2021, according to an order by the apex court’s three-judge panel headed by Justice Arun Mishra.
The chairmen of the telecom companies will have to give undertakings for payments. If failed or defaulted on payment installments then it will invite interest, penalty and contempt of court.
Reacting to the development, shares of Bharti Airtel Ltd. rose as much as 6.6%, while Vodafone Idea Ltd. pared gains to fall as much as 15%—the most since March. In comparison, the Nifty 50 Index is up 0.64%.
The Supreme Court in October had ruled that non-core revenue must be included while calculating statutory levies, ending a 14-year-old legal battle between mobile operators and the government on the definition of AGR. That had increased the liabilities of Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea to more than Rs 90,000 crore.
Telecom operators and the Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta had sought more time to repay the dues citing financial stress and the impact on the economy.
The Supreme Court, during the previous hearings, also came down heavily on what it saw as attempts to recalculate the dues of the telecom operators.