The Centre will not “coerce” companies such as Vodafone Group and Cairn Energy to make use of its one-time offer to settle their retrospective tax cases and it was up to them to take a call, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Sunday.

The option before such companies was either to accept the offer of paying principal tax amount and get waiver from interest and penalty, or continue with the litigation, he said during an interaction with PTI journalists.

“This is an alternate route which I have suggested. The option is theirs. Nobody is being coerced to accept one route or the other,” he said.

The government, he said, has no issues with companies not wanting to accept the offer and continue litigation. Asked about the tax notices sent to Vodafone and Cairn last month despite the issue being under arbitration and government commitment not to create fresh demand using retrospective tax law, Jaitley said notice would go if there are pre-existing assessment orders.

UK oil explorer Cairn Energy is facing a tax demand of ₹10,247 crore and Vodafone is facing a total of ₹14,200 crore in tax.

Both the firms have disputed any tax was due and challenged the demands by initiating international arbitration.

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