The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the liquidation of Jet Airways as the consortium of Murari Lal Jalan and Florian Fritsch has failed to take necessary steps to execute the resolution plan of the grounded carrier.
The apex court said the ₹200 crore already infused by the consortium stands forfeited.
Besides, the lenders have been allowed to encash the performance bank guarantee of ₹150 crore furnished by the consortium.
A bench of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra passed the directive while exercising the apex court’s extraordinary power vested under Article 142 of the Constitution which empowered it to pass any order, judgment or directive to “render complete justice” to an aggrieved party.
It passed the judgment on an appeal filed by a consortium of lenders headed by the State Bank of India, challenging the impugned order passed by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) that refused to interfere with the resolution process.
“The successful resolution application (SRA or the consortium) herein has failed to infuse the first tranche payment of ₹350 crore as envisaged in the Resolution Plan despite the Effective Date being fixed on 20.05.2022, “ the order said.
“As a consequence, the payment of CIRP (Corporate Insolvency Resolution
Process) costs, workmen and employees’ dues etc. which must be made in
priority over the dues of the other creditors have also not been made.”
“More than 5 years have passed and the implementation of the Resolution Plan still seems to be a dim light at the far end of a long tunnel,” Justice J.B. Pardiwala, who authored the judgment, said.
The SBI-led consortium had filed the present appeal challenging the March 12 judgment of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT).
The NCLAT dismissed the consortium’s appeal and upheld the order on January 13, 2023, passed by the National Company Law ribunal (NCLT).
The NCLT had held the consortium fulfilled all the conditions stipulated in the resolution plan.
Jet has remained grounded since April 2019.
