The petition was mentioned on Tuesday by Income Tax counsel Beni Chatterjee and Vodafone lawyer Fereshte Sethna before a bench headed by Chief Justice Mohit Shah.
Likely to seek FIPB approval to raise holding; deal could bring FDI of about $696 mn.
Arun Sarin is the chief executive officer of Vodafone Group Plc, the United Kingdom-based global mobile operator.
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Faced with over Rs 11,200 crore (Rs 112 billion) tax liability, Vodafone India chief Analjit Singh on Thursday met Finance Minister P Chidambaram for the second time this week and expressed the hope that there will be clarity soon on the proposal to settle the dispute through conciliation.
British giant Vodafone and Indian conglomerate Essar group reached an agreement on Thursday for jointly running India's fourth largest mobile firm -- Hutch-Essar, which would be rechristened Vodafone Essar.
India is believed to have challenged in a court in The Hague an arbitration tribunal verdict that overturned its demand for Rs 10,247 crore in back taxes from Cairn Energy Plc -- the second time in three months that it has refused to accept an international award against retrospective tax.
Sarin said Hutchison obviously had its own compulsions of not being able to continue in India.
The merged entity would lead with a revenue market share of about 37 per cent against Airtel's 31.2 per cent and Jio's 14.5 per cent
The move to sell the jewel in Vodafone's crown closes a heady expansionist chapter for one of Britain's most famous companies
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday indicated the government's intent to appeal against an arbitration panel asking India to return USD 1.4 billion to UK's Cairn Energy Plc, saying it is her "duty" to appeal in cases where the nation's sovereign authority to tax is questioned.
Collapse of the mobile operator could translate into total loss of nearly Rs 44,000 crore for the AV Birla group.
From its lows this month, the stock of Bharti Airtel is up 14 per cent. The gains for the telco have come on the back of expectations that market share consolidation, tariff hike and lower capex should boost margins and profits. While the company is a key player in the Indian market, it also has a leadership position in major markets of Africa.
Reliance Industries, construction major L&T and IRB Infrastructure are some of the top companies that have used an infrastructure investment trust structure to reduce part of their debt and generate returns for their investors. Earlier this month, IRB Infrastructure InvIT was listed on the National Stock Exchange, giving its investors an option to exit by selling their units. The listing came within months of the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) guidelines for conversion of private unlisted InvITs into listed ones were issued.
Most brokerages are betting that the new government will shift to a policy focussing on boosting rural incomes and consumption since that has clearly been a pain point.
The I-T department had said Vodafone India under-priced shares in a rights issue to its parent. The tax demand was for the two financial years ended March 2011.
The decision is likely to bring in at least Rs 5 lakh crore of fresh investments into the sector over five years by improving connectivity and competition
"If we are not getting anything then I think it is end of story for Vodafone Idea," Kumar Mangalam Birla said at the HT Leadership Summit when asked about the future of Vodafone Idea in absence of a government relief on payment of Rs 53,038 crore dues.
UK oil explorer Cairn Energy is facing a tax demand of Rs 10,247 crore and Vodafone over acquisition of 67% stake in the mobile business owned by Hutchison Whampoa in 2007
RBI's exercise will take into account standards of governance, the viability of the payment bank (PB) business model, and changes, if any, if needed.
The order in favour of Vodafone is being considered significant because some domestic companies too are involved in similar transfer pricing cases.
While UK's Vodafone Group fights its tax liability in courts, British firm Cairn Energy Plc on Wednesday said it will pay all taxes due, both in India and the United Kingdom, on the $8.48 billion sale of a majority stake in its Indian arm to Vedanta Resources.
India's tax authorities began investigating Cadbury in 2011.
However, the number of transactions declined to 76 in January-March this year from 110 in the year-ago quarter.
Hutchison Telecommunications India Ltd is unlikely to give the Essar Group an option to match Vodafone's offer in the documentation of the sale of its 67 per cent equity stake in Hutchison-Essar.
AG is of the view that there is no point in dragging the matter further when it has already been "struck down" by one international forum, and also by the top Indian court.
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Cairn India said it has always been fully compliant with all Indian income tax laws.
The rumour verification process would now be triggered by changes in price or 'material price movements', as the paper defines it. What this means is that companies would need to verify rumours only if the share price moves significantly.
New Delhi is also set to top its target of raising at least $13 billion.
Top three mobile operators spend $13.6 bln in auction
The government on Thursday brought a bill in the Lok Sabha to withdraw all back tax demands on companies such as Cairn Energy and Vodafone and said it will refund the money collected to enforce such levies.
While Vodafone will hold 45.1% of the shares in the new entity, to be renamed at a later stage, Kumar Mangalam Birla and other promoters of Idea group will hold 26%. Vodafone India will also transfer 4.9% of its shareholding to Idea's promoters for a cash consideration of Rs 38.74 lakh crores.
The merger will result in substantial cost and capex synergies with an estimated net present value of around USD 10 billion after integration costs and spectrum liberalisation payments, with estimated savings of USD 2.1 billion annually from the fourth year of the merger.
IndusInd Bank, Suzlon, and Paytm will remain under focus, as the stocks are pegged to get added to the MSCI global standard index. These stocks, along with six others, are seen attracting cumulative inflows of nearly $2 billion from passive funds tracking MSCI indices. Persistent Systems, APL Apollo, Polycab, Macrotech Developers, Tata Motors DVR, and Tata Communication are the other six stocks that will be added to the MSCI index, shows an analysis done by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research.
Essar Global Fund, the Ruia company that invested $1.3 billion in telecommunications, towers and business process outsourcing over the years, made $6.5 billion, a five-fold return, when it flipped these businesses, according to discussions the group has had with merchant bankers.
Jaitley sets condition of 50% assets for applicability of capital gain tax.
While some are relatively new in this business, Vodafone, which has 1.8 million touch points in the country, has been offering basic banking and payment services through its pre-paid mobile digital semi-closed wallet called M-Pesa since 2012.
'All three players in the market are haemorrhaging cash. Average consumer is consuming 12 gigabits (GB) at price points you don't see anywhere else.'
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