However, as in the case of its earlier order with regard to GSM players, the apex court has asked CAG not to audit the papers while vetting it till a case on its jurisdiction was decided by the Delhi High Court.
A bench comprising Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justice K S Radhakrishnan directed members of telecom body the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI), whose members are Reliance Communications and Tata Tele, to file the documents.
AUSPI had challenged the recent CAG direction to the telcos to submit their revenue sharing details for auditing.On August 2, in a similar order to GSM operators, the apex court had directed the their association COAI to submit their revenue sharing details to Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) within two weeks to ensure that the government was getting its due as licence fee.
The apex court, however, had said that no audit would be done as the matter on CAG's jurisdiction to audit the accounts of private telecom companies is still to be decided by the Delhi High Court.
Till the hearing of the petition in High Court is pending, no steps shall be taken by CAG to carry audit of financial accounts based on the documents given by them (private telcos), the bench had said.
The court had also said if CAG requires any further documents, the operators would have to provide them.During the last hearing, counsels appearing for CAG informed that some of the operators, including Tatas, have already submitted their revenue sharing details.
The Delhi High Court had asked the telecom companies to submit their account books to CAG. CAG had been asked by the Center to check if there was any under-reporting of revenue for calculating the licence fee.
On May 20, telecom tribunal TDSAT had declined a request from Bharti Airtel and Vodafone to stay the CAG audit.