Delhi HC Orders SpiceJet To Pay Rs 380 Crore To Sun Group's Kalanithi Maran

The Delhi High Court on Monday directed SpiceJet to pay Rs 380 crore to its former promoter Kalanithi Maran of the Sun Group.

The high court's ruling comes as a major drawback to the airline as it comes amid a battle with aircraft lessors on payments.

The court has also directed low-fare airline SpiceJet to submit an affidavit of its assets within four weeks.

The case pertains to a long-running battle between the Maran family and the current promoter, Ajay Singh, and SpiceJet, over contractual obligations.

Maran sued SpiceJet in 2017 for allegedly causing losses by failing to issue convertible warrants and preference shares to him and his KAL Airway.

On July 20, 2018, the arbitral tribunal rejected Maran's claim of damages of Rs 1,323 crore for not issuing the warrants to him and Kal Airways but had awarded him a refund of Rs 579 crore plus interest.

Maran, the owner of Sun TV Network, then moved to the high court against the arbitration award.

The matter pertained to a dispute arising out of the non-issuance of warrants in favour of Maran after the transfer of ownership to Singh, the controlling shareholder of SpiceJet.

The dispute started after Singh took back control of SpiceJet in February 2015 amid the airline facing a financial crisis.

Maran and Kal Airways had transferred their entire 35.04 crore equity shares in SpiceJet, amounting to a 58.46 per cent stake in the airline, to its co-founder Singh in February 2015 for just Rs 2.