Jio says telcos have sufficient capacity to pay dues after SC verdict


PTI | New Delhi | Updated: 31-10-2019 14:47 IST | Created: 31-10-2019 14:44 IST
Jio says telcos have sufficient capacity to pay dues after SC verdict
Jio has 35 crore customers and leads in the average 4G download speed chart Image Credit: ANI
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Strongly opposing a bailout of telecom companies at taxpayers' expense, Reliance Jio on Thursday wrote to Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad saying firms that have been ordered by the Supreme Court to pay past statutory dues have "sufficient" financial capacity to clear their liabilities. It also slammed the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) for writing ex-parte to the government on the financial distress in the sector, saying the body was "blackmailing" to "extract relief from the government" after all legal recourse had expired.

"We submit that the so-called affected service providers have sufficient financial capacity to pay the government dues by monetizing their existing assets/investments and by issuing fresh equity in their companies," it wrote in the letter to Prasad. Jio said it "strongly disagrees with COAI submission that in absence of immediate relief by the government the telecom sector will collapse and there would be an unprecedented crisis in the sector as two of the three private operators will be facing extreme financial crisis."

"We submit that COAI has used threatening and blackmailing tone with the government by referring to possible job loss, quality of service loss and loss of investment in the sector and its contentions border on contempt of Supreme Court judgment, especially when the Supreme Court has prescribed three months' time to deposit the due amount. "COAI is clearly insinuating that if the immediate relief by doing away with all legal financial obligations emerging from the Supreme Court's judgment in adjusted gross revenue case is not provided, the two operators might stop operations. We request the government to strongly rebuff such suggestions and insinuations," it wrote.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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