Bharti Airtel to pay Rs 700 cr for unpaid customs duty?

A tax tribunal in India has ordered top mobile phone carrier Bharti Airtel to pay more than Rs 700 crore for unpaid customs duty, the Hindu Business Line reported today.

A Bharti spokesman told Reuters that the company was yet to receive a copy of the tribunal order.

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Bharti imported mobile telecom equipment by splitting the value of the equipment into hardware and software, the newspaper said, citing case documents seen by it. The case was over “undervaluation of the imported goods and non-inclusion of the value of software in the imported goods”, the paper said.

Authorities had conducted searches at Bharti’s Bangalore office in 2004, it said, adding that Bharti has the option to appeal the tribunal’s order at the Supreme Court.

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Last month Hewlett Packard’s (HP) India unit haf been ordered to pay over Rs 2,000 crore for alleged customs duty evasion too.

Reuters