All eight writ petitions filed by the internet service providing company Worldlink Communications against the government have been scrapped by the Supreme Court (SC) on Sunday.
A division bench of Justices Hari Prasad Phuyal and Dr Nahakul Subedi refused the Worldlink’s claim by scrapping the petitions. With the SC’s move, the government now can collect royalty revenue and Rural Telecommunications Development Fees (RTDF) from the Worldlink Communications.
Likewise, billions of rupees is likely to be added to the state coffers after the SC verdict. Since the fiscal year 2072/073 BS, the Office of the Auditor General had pointed out that the government to collect the royalty revenue from the internet service providers (ISPs) as such money was not received to the state coffer. From a research study of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology carried out last year, the ISPs including the Worldlink Communications were found to have evaded the tax.
The Ministry had formed a study team led by Joint Secretary Gaurav Giri to probe into the tax evasion from the ISPs. As pointed out by the study team, nine ISPs have to pay Rs 3.64 billion in royalty revenue and Rural Telecommunications Development Fees to the government. Under the headings, the Worldlink Communications has to pay Rs 1.96 billion.
