On Friday the Supreme Court interrogated the reason of why Reliance Jio Infocomn is not held liable to pay adjusted gross revenue (AGR). The dues related to Reliance Communications'(Rcom) spectrum has been since 2016.
“Jio is required to pay Rcom’s AGR dues if Jio is actual user of spectrum …..spectrum is government’s,” said Justice Arun Mishra, leading the three-judge bench on the AGR case on Friday.
Stressing that the spectrum belongs to the government and revenue must be shared, the bench asked for spectrum uses details of all insolvent telcos.
” Revenue has to be shared. Person using is required to pay AGR dues …. Spectrum involves public property. Government revenues regime allows sharing,” said the apex court.
” We instructed them to keep on record of information associated to agreement entered into with respect to using of spectrum by the respective parties. In the case of RCOM, its spectrum of 800 MHz is being used by Relience Jio from 2016,” said the court order.
The company also instructed to detail out spectrum agreements and payment modalities between telcos. Further SC ordered that ” The department of Telecommunications(DoT)has to clear their dues according to the name, from which date and how much spectrum is being used year wise. The amount deposited with it for using of the same amount by the respective companies under some inter se arrangements of the companies should be paid.
The court ordered instructed that all details of the bankrupt telcos should be ” made clear by the CoC and Resolution Professional as well as by the counsel appearing for the respective companies”.
Jio has cleared its own AGR dues of Rs 195 crore and during Rcom owes the government Rs 25,194.58 crore in statutory dues, including those of Sistema Shyam Teleservices(Rs 222.1 crore), which was merged with it.
Currently the case has been adjourned for next Monday- August 17.
The time when Anil Ambani entered into the agreement with Jio in 2016 for trading spectrum in 8 circles. Jio has been paying spectrum usage charges for Rcom’s airwaves.
Both telcos has also experimented to ink an asset monetsiation plan for Rcom but the telecom department refusal to give its nod without dues getting cleared led to deal falling apart. From then the telecom sector has modified drastically and while Jio is the leading telco today, Rcom is awaiting regulatory nods for its resolution plan.
The court also shown intrested in knowing the RCom asset. ” Who’s buying RCom? want to know individual behind purchaser? Not everything is being told to us clearly,” the bench remarked.
RCom and its unit Reliance Telecom trying to sell its houses spectrum, fibre, data centre to reconstruction firm UV Asset Reconstruction Company(UVARCL), mean while Reliance Infratel- the tower unit, is likely to go to Jio. The insolvency court is yet to give its nod to these resolution plans.
Surpriseingly UVARCL has received the National Company law Tribunal’s approval for buying Aircel’s assets as well. Friday hearing was part of larger AGR case where SC had wished to ensure the bankrupt telcos like RCom,Aircel etc were not evading statutory dues.
“Similar direction is pointed to other companies which are under insolvency, including Aircel Limited,Aircel cellular Limited and Dishnet wireless Limited and Videocon Telecommunications Ltd.to specify who is using the spectrum an arrangement along with documents be placed on record,” stated SC’s order.
There is multiple issue over usage, transfer and ownership rights of airwaves that the bankrupt telcos have and were most important asset in their resolution plans.
