The Vodafone Idea share price, which had fallen to a 52-week low in early trading on Thursday, suddenly surged at 2:10pm, hours before the Centre introduced the retro tax rollback bill in the Lok Sabha that struck off the government’s Rs 22,000-crore tax demand on the British company.

The stock closed at Rs 5.94 on the BSE, down 1.49 per cent but much higher than the day’s low of Rs 4.55.

Investors had hammered down the stock by 24.54 per cent in early trade in the wake of Kumar Mangalam Birla’s announcement that he was stepping down as the chairman of the company.

According to Moneycontrol, Birla decided to quit in an apparent bid to ringfence the assets of Aditya Birla group from any adverse impact of a possible default by Vodafone Idea.

Vodafone Idea CEO Ravinder Takkar on Thursday reached out to employees seeking to reassure them, and urged the staff to continue focusing on providing quality services to customers and sustain intensity in the market.

Meanwhile, UK-based Vodafone declined to comment on a report that suggested it is ready to offer its VIL stake for free to Indian banks, financial institutions or to state-owned BSNL, provided they take over the mobile telephony firm. “We will not be commenting,” Vodafone said in response to a mail sent by PTI.

Last month, Birla had offered to hand over the Birla group’s stake in VIL to the government or any other entity to ensure the company remains a going concern.