The Jalan Kalrock consortium (JKC), would-be owner of Jet Airways (Mumbai International), has withdrawn an appeal to India's National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) seeking permission to transfer INR2 billion rupees (USD24 million) it had deposited with the defunct carrier's lenders to an interest-bearing account.
Counsel for the consortium pulled the appeal on May 27 in the matter of State Bank of India & Others v The Consortium of Murari Lal Jalan and Mr Florian Fritsch & Another after the presiding judge, Ashok Bhushan, indicated he would dismiss the application as the matter was running concurrently in the Supreme Court.
The INR2 billion payment was made last year, part of INR3.5 billion (USD42 million) due to the airline's creditors to initiate the ownership transfer to JKC. The consortium had paid the INR2 billion in cash but asked the creditors to take the remaining amount due from a bank guarantee they had previously lodged.
Jet Airways went out of business in 2019, owing creditors almost INR80 billion (USD960 million). The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) approved a restructuring plan in June 2021 that intended to see the consortium take control of the airline in exchange for a series of payments to creditors. However, JKC and the Jet Airways creditors committee, led by the State Bank of India, have been at loggerheads ever since, with both sides alleging non-compliance with the restructuring plan's terms and initiating a rolling series of legal challenges. The INR2 billion payment was made last year as part of the agreed-on payment schedule under the restructuring plan.
Meanwhile, JKC says the resolution plan is at the implementation stage, but there will be a delay in declaring the financial results for the quarter and year ending March 31, 2024. The monitoring committee, distinct from the creditors committee, has not adopted the quarterly results for the three-month periods ending September 30, 2023, December 31, 2023, and March 31, 2024, according to a May 30 National Stock Exchange of India filing.
"A meeting will be convened shortly to consider and adopt the aforesaid financial results," the filing reads. "Further, we wish to state that currently the approved resolution plan is at the implementation stage."
Jet Airways made the disclosure under regulations 30 and 33 of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Listing Obligations & Disclosure Requirements) Regulations (2015).