The Delhi High Court will hear on August 18, a petition filed by SpiceJet against the single-judge Bench order of August 14, which directed the budget airlines to ground three aircraft engines.
The matter was mentioned by Senior Advocate Amit Sibal before the Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora for hearing today.
Highlighting the urgency in the case, Sibal said that the order would effectively lead to the grounding of two of their planes.
He submitted that the budget airlines only had a fleet of 21 aircraft. The engines were to be grounded as of August 16. Each aircraft used two engines and the order would effectively lead to grounding of two aircraft. This would cause public inconvenience as flights have been booked.
The Division Bench refused to list the case today since some of the judges were on leave.
The High Court listed the matter for hearing on August 20.
On August 14, the single-judge Bench of Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora had ordered SpiceJet to ground three engines leased from two French lessors after the airline defaulted on rental lease payments.
SpiceJet was directed to ground the three engines by August 16 and return them to lessors, Team France 01 SAS and Sunbird France 02 SAS, within 15 days.
The High Court passed the order on petitions filed by Team France 01 SAS and Sunbird France 02 SAS claiming that SpiceJet owed them several million dollars.
Calling SpiceJet a defaulter, the single-judge Bench held that the budget airlines had no legal and contractual right to continue using the engines.
The airlines challenged this order before a Division Bench.