Delhi high court upholds order asking SpiceJet to return three engines to lessor
A single judge of the high court on August 14 ruled that the airline was a defaulter and had no legal and contractual right to continue using the three engines
A division bench of the Delhi high court on Wednesday upheld a single judge’s order directing the budget airline SpiceJet to ground three engines and return them to the lessor—Team France 01 SAS and Sunbird France 02 SAS.
“We are not inclined to interfere with the order. The appeals are not entertained. The impugned directions have not been interfered with by us,” a bench of justices Rajiv Shakdher and Amit Bansal said.
SpiceJet approached the division bench against the August 14 order directing the grounding of three engines and returning to the lessor with effect from August 16. The single judge ruled that the airline was a defaulter and had no legal and contractual right to continue using the engines.
In his 21-page order, Justice Manmeet PS Arora said SpiceJet had been extremely erratic in making payments to the lessors for its admitted dues and thus directed the airline to redeliver the engines within 15 days from the date of the order. Justice Arora directed the airline to offer prior inspection of the engines to lessors through an authorised representative at the Delhi airport within seven days.
“This Court is of the considered opinion that the defendant has been extremely erratic in making payments to the plaintiff for its admitted dues. In fact, a perusal of the intermittent payments made by the defendant after 29.05.2024 shows that effectively the defendant has only made payments towards the concurrent usage charges for three (3) Engines and the original outstanding has still not been liquidated,” Justice Arora said.
The August 14 order was passed after the lessor sought to restrain the airline from operating three engines and an order to grounding them, saying the airline had paid $8.36 million, and the outstanding as of date was $9.41 million.