Ace Aviation gets adjournment from NCLAT in Jet Airways aircraft sale matter

Ace Aviation VIII Ltd, on Wednesday, was successful in securing an adjournment from the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal in its appeal filed for enforcing the sale of three aircraft from the monitoring committee of Jet Airways.

The senior counsel appearing on behalf of Ace Aviation argued that the matter be taken up after the pronouncement of the National Company Law Tribunal Mumbai order, which was reserved on August 30.

The senior counsel said that withdrawing the current petition or terming it as infructuous, as proposed by the other side, would limit the bidder's options.

At the last hearing on August 10, the chairperson's bench had refused to issue notice and adjourned the matter to September 6, as the NCLT was to pronounce its order on August 30.

The matter was heard by a different bench on September 6, which adjourned it to September 27.

Ace Aviation had approached the appellate tribunal after the NCLT Mumbai had given an interim order asking the monitoring committee to break the deadlock on the sale of three aircraft.

The monitoring committee of the beleaguered airline had kept the bidding process in abeyance after it could not get all members to agree on the sale. The committee comprises a resolution professional and three members each from the financial creditors and resolution applicant.

Ace Aviation has argued that it has already paid Rs 50 crore and was to pay another Rs 350 crore to secure the three aircraft and that the asset's value was depreciating owing to the deadlock in the monitoring committee.

The resolution applicant in this case is Jalan Kalrock Consortium, which has been embroiled in legal tussles with the airline’s committee of creditors for restarting business.

The JKC, in another matter listed before the NCLAT last month, was successful in securing an extension for payment of Rs 350 crore to the CoC. While JKC has paid Rs 100 crore, it is to pay another Rs 100 crore by September 30 to move forward with the process of reviving the airline.

The NCLAT had allowed the appeal by JKC to direct banks to encash the bank guarantee of Rs 150 crore furnished by the consortium. JKC was also successful in renewing the air operator’s certificate from the civil aviation regulator Director General of Civil Aviation last month.

The airline has been grounded since 2019.