Akasa Air Vs Pilots: Bombay High Court Reserves Order On Plea Maintainability
Akasa had moved court against few pilots who left without serving the six-month notice period as per their contracts.
The Bombay High Court reserved its order on Monday in the pilots' plea that challenged the maintainability of suits filed against them by Akasa Air.
The order will decide whether Akasa has permission to move forward with the case before the high court. It will pronounce the order on Wednesday.
Akasa had approached the court against a few pilots who left the airline to join rivals without serving the six-month notice period required as per their contracts.
The airline claimed that this was not only a breach of contract but also a violation of civil aviation rules, which require pilots to give a minimum of six-month notice before leaving any airline. It also sought Rs 18 lakh from pilots for breach of contract and Rs 21 crore for the "financial and reputational damage" caused by the sudden resignation.
However, some of the pilots had challenged the plea, citing a lack of jurisdiction with the court. They argued that the high court was not the right court to deal with the dispute as the contract was neither executed nor performed within the court's jurisdiction.
Since Indian law doesn't allow a suit to be instituted in a court under whose jurisdiction the contract was neither executed nor performed, the suit is not maintainable, they argued.
Akasa contended that this argument was not tenable. It said that since the employment contract explicitly grants exclusive jurisdiction to Mumbai courts, the high court has jurisdiction to proceed with the suits.
In addition to the contract's execution, which took place in Mumbai, the airlines also accepted the resignation in Mumbai. This means that a significant material fact, key to the contract, occurred in Mumbai, giving the high court sufficient jurisdiction to proceed with the case, according to Akasa.
However, the pilots argued that the acceptance of resignation was immaterial.
Since there was a termination clause in the contract that allowed the pilots to leave the airlines either by serving notice or paying damages, it doesn’t necessarily have to be accepted by the airlines, it said.
They argued that the only question that remains to be answered is whether they should serve the notice period or not.
The court reserved the orders after hearing both parties.
