SpiceJet's Ajay Singh To Pay Rs 100 Cr To Maran Today

SpiceJet chairman and promoter Ajay Singh is likely to make the Rs 100 crore payment to Kalanithi Maran on Monday, sources said. The Delhi High Court (HC) had set a deadline of 10 September for Singh to make the payment as the first instalment to settle the earlier dispute. The court had orally warned Singh that the failure to make the payment could lead to the attachment of profits of his company and also his likely arrest.

However, sources in the know said, Singh would be making the payment today. Last month, the low-cost airline's CMD was present in person before Justice Yogesh Khanna of the Delhi HC when he was asked to make the payment.  The court had highlighted that the payment was to be made to show Singh’s bona fide intention towards settling dues with the Marans. The HC has set today's date for further hearing of the case. 

Maran was the erstwhile promoter of SpiceJet and had sold the airlines to Singh in 2015. It is a seven-year-old share transfer dispute where Maran has claimed that Singh owes him Rs 398 crore. After taking the court through an affidavit filed by SpiceJet detailing the company's profit and loss statement for the last quarters, Singh sought an attachment of the entire profit of Rs. 204 crore towards the company's liability to Maran, if he could not pay.

Represented by senior advocate Amit Sibal, SpiceJet and Singh had argued that the company was struggling to stay afloat owing to certain 'black swan' events such as the pandemic and the grounding of Boeing 737 Max aircraft. He also told the court that nobody would benefit if the company went into insolvency.

Palak Shah

BW Reporters The writer is author of the book: The Market Mafia - Chronicle of India’s High-Tech Stock Market Scandal & The Cabal That Went Scot-Free. Palak has been a journalist in Mumbai for nearly two decades now. He has worked for most premier pink papers including The Economic Times, Business Standard and The Financial Express and The Hindu Business Line. He was drawn to crime reporting at the age of 19 but a few years in the field told him that the fabric of crime had changed and the organised gangs, as Mumbai had witnessed during the eighties, no longer existed. It was business and markets that dominated the scenario. His passion to unravel the intricacies of the ‘white money’ economy led Palak to the world of finance and regulations.