PremiumMumbai: After 6 months of banks making an effort to salvage Jet Airways Ltd, the troubled airline has landed at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).
Two operational creditors, Shaman Wheels Pvt Ltd and Gaggar Enterprises Pvt Ltd, have filed two separate insolvency pleas against the Naresh Goyal-founded Jet Airways at NCLT, Mumbai, for recovery of their dues. The NCLT on Monday adjourned the matter to 13 June and asked the creditors to serve notice to Jet Airways for dues.
According to details available at the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) website Shaman Wheels is motor dealership in Mumbai and Gaggar Enterprises is a mineral producer in Ahmedabad.
Shaman Wheels, a vendor for trucks and trailers for the airline, has dues of ₹6.28 crore pending from Jet Airways. Gaggar Enterprises sold packaged drinking water to the carrier and the money owed to it could not be ascertained immediately.
This petition may also push the lenders to implead themselves as financial creditors for recovery of dues. Lenders to Jet Airways, led by the State Bank of India (SBI), are claiming a large chunk of the airline’s total liabilities, including unpaid salaries and vendor dues, of nearly ₹15,000 crore.
As Jet Airways has been referred to the NCLT under bankruptcy resolution lenders may recover only a fraction of the ₹8,400 crore the airline owes them.
Starting this year, lenders have been trying to resolve the insolvency crisis at Jet Airways outside the NCLT due to fear of little to no recovery. Under the bank-led resolution process Etihad Airways had agreed to invest in the grounded airline provided it remains a minority investor. On 27 May, Mint reported that lenders would take a final decision on the fate of Jet Airways in the next two weeks as they seek a new domestic investor before taking up the last option of a bankruptcy filing.
The airline was grounded on 17 April after it failed to repay its creditors and was not able to meet operational costs due to lack of funds.
