Spice Jet to appeal against order to wind up company

CHENNAI: Spice Jet has on Wednesday told the Madras High Court it prefers to go with an appeal against the order passed by a single judge that was directed to wind up the air carrier for not paying $24 million to a Swiss-based company which is involved in aircraft and components maintenance and repair works.

Spice Jet made this submission before a Division Bench comprising Justice Paresh Upadhyay and Justice Sakthi Kumar Sukamara Kurup informing it has adhered to the single judge’s order by depositing an amount equal to $5 mn for allowing the company to challenge the single judge’s order dated 6.12.2021.

“Though we entered into an agreement with the Swiss based company in 2011, we came to know that the Swiss company has not got the approval from the Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) midway. Therefore, we have stopped our payments to the Swiss company,” SpiceJet submitted through senior counsel V Ramakrishnan.

He further submitted that the stand of the single judge Spice Jet has entered into a pact despite knowing that the company has no authorization from the DGCA is an assumption due to the arbitrary proceedings entered between the Credit Suisse AG, a Zurich-based stock corporation and SR Technics, the Swiss aircraft maintenance firm. Credit Suisse AG had been assigned the right to receive the payments due to SR Technics, according to the senior counsel.

Rahul Balaji, counsel for Credit Suisse AG, submitted that they have not got any communication from Spice Jet stating that his client was not authorised by the DGCA and therefore Spice Jet would not pay them for that reason. On recording the submissions, the judges adjourned the matter to Thursday for hearing further arguments.