The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has postponed the hearing of insolvency pleas against budget carrier SpiceJet, granting the airline 10 days to file a rejoinder. The pleas were filed by aircraft lessors Aircastle of Ireland and Wilmington Trust. The court is scheduled to hear the Aircastle case on 8 August, and Wilmington Trust’s plea on 17 August.
During the hearing, NCLT questioned the aircraft lessors for filing multiple petitions for the same claim.
In response, Ritesh Singh, Wilmington Trust’s counsel, said that the multiple petitions were for the sake of clarity and simplicity. Besides, he argued that there is no prohibition on filing multiple petitions, given that each default in payment requires a separate plea.
Chinmoy Sharma, the senior lawyer representing Aircastle, said its petition should be given priority in the hearing process, considering that Aircastle is the only petitioner for which the court has issued a notice, and the pleading process has been completed.
Krishnendu Dutta, a senior lawyer representing SpiceJet, challenged the admissibility of three simultaneous pleas filed by a single petitioner. He also requested the court to grant 10 days to submit the rejoinders to the lessors’ reply.
Separately, NCLT will also decide on the maintainability of the insolvency plea by Willis Lease Finance Corp., which had leased engines to SpiceJet, on 21 July.
On July 4, the tribunal had questioned the maintainability of the insolvency plea filed against the low-cost airline by Willis Lease Finance, considering that the leasing company had earlier filed and then withdrawn a petition against SpiceJet related to the same dispute in March 2023.