Arbitration Dispute
SC rejects Maran, KAL Airways' INR 13-bln damages claim against SpiceJet
This story was originally published at 11:22 IST on 23 July 2025
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--SC rejects Maran, KAL Airways' INR 13-bln damages claim against SpiceJet
NEW DELHI – Upholding an order by the Delhi High Court in May, the Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the claim of Sun Group founder Kalanithi Maran and KAL Airways Pvt. Ltd. of INR 13.23 billion in damages against SpiceJet Ltd. in an arbitration case. "Both the special leave petitions are dismissed," said a bench of Justices Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Atul S. Chandurkar.
In May, the division bench of the high court had observed that Maran, a former promoter of SpiceJet, had engaged in a "calculated gamble" by delaying the filing and re-filing of their appeals. The high court had pulled up KAL Airways and Maran for delay in filing their appeal, suppressing material facts related to their pending applications, and unjustifiably delaying the proceedings.
"The delay in refiling is completely lacking in bona fides and represents a gamble by the unsuccessful litigant (KAL Airways) keeping all, including the successful litigant (SpiceJet), in the dark," the high court had said.
The case has its genesis from Maran and KAL Airways transferring their entire 58.46% stake in SpiceJet to co-founder Ajay Singh in February 2015. Maran later moved the high court, accusing SpiceJet and Singh of breaching their agreement by failing to issue him 189 million share warrants and preference shares. KAL Airways is controlled by Maran. After a dispute between the parties, the issue was referred to an arbitral tribunal by the high court.
In 2018, an arbitral tribunal rejected Maran and KAL Airways' claim of damages worth INR 13.23 billion against SpiceJet for not issuing warrants to the petitioners. However, the arbitral tribunal awarded a refund of INR 5.79 billion with interest to the petitioners. Thereafter, both the parties moved the Delhi High Court's single-judge bench, which had upheld the award in 2023.
When the case reached the division bench, the latter found merit in SpiceJet's contention and remanded the matter back to the single-judge bench for fresh consideration. The petitioners sought the same amount in damages before the single-judge bench, which was again rejected by the court. Following this, Maran moved the division bench, challenging the single-judge bench’s order.
At 1105 IST, shares of SpiceJet Ltd. were up 2.9% at INR 39.19 on the National Stock Exchange. End
IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT
Reported by Surya Tripathi
Edited by Avishek Dutta
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