Supreme Court Rejects Maran, KAL Airways' Rs 1,300-Crore Damages Claim Against SpiceJet
The matter related to a share transfer dispute wherein Kal Airways and SpiceJet's former promoter Maran sold its entire stake in the airline to its co-founder Ajay Singh in 2015.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an appeal by Kalanithi Maran and KAL Airways Ltd. challenging a Delhi High Court judgement holding that he had engaged in a “calculated gamble” by delaying the filing and re-filing of the challenge to a 2023 arbitral award ruling in a dispute involving SpiceJet, as per a Bar and Bench report.
A bench of Justices PS Narasimha and AS Chandurkar passed the order today.
The matter related to a share transfer dispute wherein Kal Airways and SpiceJet's former promoter Maran sold its entire stake in the airline to its co-founder Ajay Singh in 2015.
The arrangement included provisions for Maran and KAL Airways to receive warrants and preference shares, which were, however, never issued.
In 2018, an arbitral tribunal ruled in favour of Maran but dismissed his claim for Rs 1,323 crore in damages for the non-issuance of warrants but agreed to a refund of Rs 579 crore plus interest.
A single-judge bench of the Delhi High Court had given its stamp of approval to the arbitral tribunal's decision in 2023.
SpiceJet and Singh filed intra-court appeals in August 2023 that were heard on several dates and decided on May 17, 2024, with the division bench remanding the matter for fresh consideration by a different single judge.
The direction to refund Rs 270 crore was effectively put on hold. Maran and KAL Airways then approached the Supreme Court, which dismissed their Special Leave Petitions (SLPs) on July 26, 2024, according to the Bar and Bench report.
Just four days later, Maran and KAL Airways refiled defective appeals they had originally submitted with a 55-day delay and had left pending for 226 days due to unresolved objections. The division bench of Justices C Hari Shankar and Ajay Digpaul dismissed these appeals on May 24, 2025, refusing to condone either the initial filing delay or the prolonged delay in re-filing.
