As reported in the December 2019 issue of Inter Alia…, the Supreme Court of India (‘SC’) in its judgment dated October 24, 2019 (‘Judgment’), had interpreted the terms ‘gross revenue’ and ‘adjusted gross revenue’ as defined under the Unified Access Service License (‘UASL’). While doing so, the SC found Telecom Service Providers (‘TSPs’) to be in default of payment of license fee as demanded by DoT, in terms of the UASL and that interest and penalty had been rightly levied upon the TSPs over and above the license fee that was charged.

The SC in its order dated March 18, 2020 (‘Order’), has prohibited any self-assessment /re-assessment of the license fee payable to the DoT by the TSPs, as that would amount to reopening of the issues which have been finally settled by the SC in the Judgment. The SC further held that such fee along with the levied interest and penalty will be payable as per its order dated October 24, 2019. Further, in relation to the application filed by DoT for providing reasonable time to the defaulting companies to make payment of the aforementioned dues and to cease the interest payment after a particular date, the SC held that the subject matter of the application will be taken up on the next date of hearing. However, the matter has not yet been listed on account of the lockdown imposed due to COVID-19.