India’s Supreme Court has ordered the liquidation of the beleaguered Jet Airways, officially ending any hopes of a revival more than five years after the airline went bankrupt.
In a ruling issued 7 November, the apex court found that airline owners Jalan-Kalrock Consortium had failed to implement the airline’s resolution plan, which was approved by the courts in 2021.
The consortium, which comprises tycoon Murari Lal Jalan and UK-based Kalrock Capital, took control of Jet Airways - once the country’s largest privately-owned carrier - after it collapsed in 2019 amid mounting debts.
While the revival plan was greenlit in 2021, the consortium faced a long-drawn legal battle with airline creditors, one which delayed a revival of operations.
The court also found that an order from the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) in March this year was “perverse and unsustainable in law”.
The country’s top tribunal had allowed a full transfer of ownership to the consortium without payment to creditors, and upheld the original resolution plan. Jet’s creditors then took the case to the Supreme Court, appealing against the NCLAT’s decision.
In its grounds for the decision, the court states: “In the peculiar and alarming circumstances…and also keeping in mind the fact that almost five years have elapsed since the resolution Plan was duly approved by the NCLAT and there being no progress worth the name, we are left with no other option but to…direct that the corporate debtor be taken in liquidation.”
The court has ordered the appointment of a liquidator.
