New Delhi, 19 September (H.S.):

Shares of Vodafone Idea on Thursday

crashed 20% to its 52-week low of ₹10.33 on BSE after the Supreme Court

rejected a plea to re-calculate the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) dues. Indus

Towers was down almost 9 percent at ₹390. Bharti Airtel ended at ₹1,665.

The apex court reaffirmed its

decision on the AGR ruling against telecom companies, maintaining the full

amount of the AGR demand, which translated into a burden of ₹58,000 crore.

With the interest levy, that burden has now gone up to ₹70,320 cr . The

three-judge bench, led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, also rejected

the plea to list the curative petitions for open court hearing.

The petitions were filed after the

court in July 2021 dismissed pleas seeking correction of errors in the demand

of AGR dues. The companies had moved the court claiming there were several

errors in arriving at the dues totalling to more than ₹1 lakh crore. The

court gave the companies ten years to clear their dues.

In their curative petitions, the

telecom companies had sought relief alleging grave error in the calculation of

dues by the department of telecommunication. Last year, Airtel and Vi had

appealed to the Supreme Court to reconsider an earlier ruling, which had

rejected their claims of arithmetical errors in the Department of

Telecommunications' (DoT) calculation of AGR dues, seeking a hearing in open

court for their curative petitions.

Hindusthan Samachar / Nimish kumar