The Supreme Court of India has asked the IT department to calculate the exact amount of tax that Vodafone is liable to pay, within four weeks. And in the way it has also overrules a Bombay High Court decision that had asked the telecom player to pay $ 2 billion as tax.

This amount was imposed on it since Vodafone took over Hutch Essar and the IT department says that since the deal took place in India, the company is liable to pay taxes here.

Vodafone, on the other hand, through its advocate Harish Salve had accused the IT department of taking a curious approach in its case. It said that the transfer of capital from Hutchinson Telecommunications International Ltd (HTIL) to Vodafone has been erroneously termed as capital gain.

When Harish was pressing for stay, it was refused by the SC bench comprising Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justices K S Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar, attorney general G E Vahanvati and additional solicitor general Mohan Parasaran.

The bench said that if it stayed the order given to HC then that would mean not protecting the interests of IT department.