Divya Prata, Pune
On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to overturn the Delhi High Court’s ruling enabling the cash-strapped Go First airline’s aircraft lessors to examine their aircraft at least twice a month in order to perform repairs.
The special leave petition (SLP) filed by the resolution professional—hired under the insolvency law to manage the airline — challenging the high court’s decision in favour of the lessors was dismissed by a bench led by CJI D.Y. Chandrachud and made up of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.
Additionally, the Court declined to consider the argument because the petitions before the High Court were being heard on a daily basis. The petitioners were also instructed to produce jurisdictional documents before the sole judge. The airline’s Resolution Professional (RP) was tasked by the court to bring the matter before the Supreme Court. Senior attorney Shyam Divan, who represented the RP, claimed that the Supreme Court needed to get involved since the Delhi High Court and the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) were issuing conflicting orders. The top court ruled that the airline could not fly the leased planes, but the NCLT ruled that Go First, formerly GoAir, may fly the aircraft.
“We will not entertain. Since proceedings are pending before the Delhi High Court, where petitions are being argued on a day-to-day basis. We are not entertaining this at the present stage. Let the jurisdictional issues also be addressed before the single judge,” the Court said.
The airline has maintained that the absence of planes will have serious negative effects on the business. Due to the advanced stage of the hearing before Justice Tara Vitasta Ganju’s bench, the Supreme Court declined to consider the argument. The 56 aircraft in the airline’s fleet are all leased. Pembroke Aviation, Accipiter Investments Aircraft 2 Ltd., EOS Aviation, and SMBC Aviation, the owners of thirty of these, filed a petition with the high court for the release of their aircraft.
Lessors submitted a number of applications in the main petitions requesting to de-register their aircraft currently on lease with Go First in order to prevent any future losses, and on July 5 a bench of Justice Tara Vitasta Ganju granted them permission to inspect their aircraft.
In addition, Justice Ganju had requested that the lessors, as well as their representatives and staff, be given three days to access the airport and inspect the aircraft that are now parked there.
On July 12, a split bench consisting of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Narula maintained the interim decision issued by the sole judge.