Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told SC that the government has to recover Rs 31,000 crore from RCom

Supreme Court AGR dues hearing HIGHLIGHTS:  The Supreme Court has adjourned the hearing on telecom companies under insolvency to Friday, August 14. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told SC that the government has to recover Rs 31,000 crore from Reliance Communications. The apex court questioned the government’s stance on the matter. “What is the government plan to recover money from RCom?” SC asked. Senior lawyer Shyam Divan, who appeared for Reliance Communications, told SC that Ericsson’s claim was for Rs 1,677 crore. Insolvency proceedings began on account of claims made by operational creditor Ericsson, China Development Bank. Divan further informed that RCom had withdrawn appeals from NCLT, which was allowed by NCLAT. RCom’s resolution professional also said that the monetisation process outside IBC failed due to lack of consensus among the lenders.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared for Department of Telecommunications (DoT), senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi for Bharti Airtel, Mukul Rohatgi for Vodafone Idea, senior lawyers Arvind Datar and Ramji Srinivasan for Tata Teleservices, Kapil Sibal for Hughes Communications and senior lawyer Ravi Kadam for Aircel. So far, Bharti Airtel has paid Rs 18,004 crore out of total dues of Rs 43,000 and Vodafone Idea paid Rs 7,854 crore out of its total AGR dues of around Rs 58,000 crore. As per the DoT estimates, telecom companies owe a total of Rs 1.19 lakh crore, of which it has received Rs 26,896 crore so far, with balance at Rs 92,520 crore.