The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed the Centre’s review petitions challenging its earlier decision to uphold a Delhi High Court ruling that allowed Bharti Airtel and other telecom companies to claim input tax credit (ITC) on mobile telecom towers under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime.
The ruling comes as a significant relief for Indus Towers and Bharti Airtel. More importantly, the outcome has wider implications for the telecom tower industry, reinforcing the legal position that telecom towers can qualify as “plant and machinery” and that ITC cannot be denied by treating such infrastructure as immovable property.
The review petition was filed by the Commissioner, CGST Appeal-1, Delhi, against Bharti Airtel and other respondents. It arose from the Supreme Court’s August 8, 2025 orders in Special Leave Petition (Civil) Nos. 22060-22062 of 2025, through which the top court had declined to interfere with the Delhi High Court’s verdict.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Prasanna B. Varale said it had carefully considered the review petitions and the grounds raised but found no error apparent on the face of the record that warranted reconsideration of its earlier order.
“Consequently, we find no merit in the review petition(s),” the court said, adding that the review petitions would stand dismissed. The bench also condoned the delay in filing the review petitions and disposed of pending applications.
The underlying dispute centred on whether telecom towers affixed to land or rooftops qualify as immovable property, which would block ITC under Section 17(5) of the CGST Act, 2017, or as plant and machinery, which is eligible for credit.
The Delhi High Court had ruled in favour of Bharti Airtel and other petitioners, holding that telecom towers fall within the scope of plant and machinery and are eligible for ITC. The Revenue had argued that the towers were immovable in nature and were therefore ineligible for credit.
When the Revenue challenged the ruling, the Supreme Court dismissed its special leave petitions at the admission stage in August 2025. The bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and Prasanna B. Varale also declined to accept the Revenue’s attempt to draw a distinction between the treatment of such infrastructure under the earlier service tax regime and the GST framework, pushing back against what was described as a “hair-splitting” interpretation.
The telecom companies had argued that the legislative intent in both the pre-GST and GST regimes was to deny ITC only on immovable property and that telecom towers did not fall within that category. They also pointed to the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling in Bharti Airtel’s own case under the service tax regime.
