Shares of Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL), Indus Towers Ltd and Bharti Airtel Ltd slipped up to 6 per cent in Friday's trade after it was reported that the Supreme Court rejected a set of pleas by the telecom operators over alleged miscalculations in adjusted gross revenue (AGR) related dues. This comes amid a long-standing dispute over payment of dues to the government.
The curative petition was listed before a bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna, justices Abhay S Oka and Sanjay Kumar. The curative petitions were filed by the telecom companies challenging a 2021 verdict, which had refused to allow corrections of errors or unintended additions in the Department of Telecommunications' (DoT's) calculation of AGR dues.
The telcos had argued that there were some "glaring errors" in the demand raised by the Centre, wherein certain payments already been made by the companies were not taken into account before computing outstanding AGR dues.
Following the top court's order, shares of VIL, Indus Towers and Airtel turned negative. VIL's stock was the most hit, diving 5.90 per cent to hit a day low of Rs 8.14. Indus Towers slipped 4.67 per cent to Rs 332.35 level and Airtel shed 0.91 per cent to Rs 1,256.20.
On the earnings front, Indus Towers posted a 160 per cent year-on-year (YoY) surge in its third-quarter net profit to Rs 4,003 crore, driven by robust tower additions and significant overdue collections from VIL, one of its key clients. Recently, UK-based Vodafone Group sold its remaining 3 per cent stake in the domestic telecom infrastructure firm (Indus Towers) for Rs 2,800 crore.
VIL's consolidated net loss reduced to Rs 6,609.3 crore in the December 2024 quarter (Q3 FY25) from Rs 6,986.7 crore in year-ago period. And, Airtel's consolidated net profit zoomed 505 per cent to Rs 14,781 crore in Q3 FY25 as against Rs 2,442.2 crore in the December 2023 quarter.