Telcos entitled to CENVAT credit on tower parts, shelters and chairs: Supreme Court
The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed appeals filed by telecommunication companies such as Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Tata telecommunications challenging orders that held that they were not entitled to Central Value Added Tax Credit (CENVAT credit) on tower parts, shelter, printers and chairs [M/S Bharti Airtel Limited v. Commissioner of Central Excise, Pune III].
The judgment was passed by a Division Bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and N Kotiswar Singh.
"We have allowed the appeals in the main matter as well as connected matters by the companies. We have upheld the 2021 Delhi High Court decision and have set aside the Bombay High Court decision of 2014 in Bharti Airtel," Justice Singh said, while reading out the operative portion of the judgment.
A copy of the detailed order is awaited.
The question of law raised in these appeals was whether tower parts and shelters qualify as "capital goods" or "inputs" under the Central Value Added Tax/ CENVAT Credit Rules, 2004 and whether towers can be considered components of capital goods.
