Days after Naresh Goyal, former Chairman of Jet Airways, was prohibited from flying outside the country, the Regional Labour Commissioner (RLC) will summon Goyal in a case related to non-payment of staff salaries.

The RLC had earlier asked Goyal to be present for hearing on a complaint filed by All India Jet Airways Staff and Officers Association (AIJASOA). Goyal was made a party to the dispute because he founded the airline and held 51 per cent stake. “Since there is no acknowledgement from his side and no representative has attended the hearings at RLC on his behalf, summons will be issued against him,” said a person close to the proceedings.

On May 27, it was the third hearing of the dispute between AIJASOA and Jet Airways management which was filed under section 33C of the Industrial Dispute act for non-remittance of salaries for the past three months.

Representatives on behalf of SBI, Jet Airways management and AIJASOA had attended the two-hour hearing. The next hearing will be held on June 6.

Are banks liable?

BusinessLine had last week reported that SBI has objected to being made party in the dispute as it was between the employees and employer. SBI had said that they were not in a position to remit the salaries because their loan was overdue. Jet Airways owes over ₹14,000 crore to financial and operational creditors.

However, Kiran Pawaskar, MLC and President of AIJASOA, told BusinessLine that they opposed the request on the grounds that “the banks are the current decision makers as the top management has already quit.”

Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate and the Serious Fraud Investigation Office are understood to have begun preliminary probe into the airline’s finances to check if funds were siphoned off.

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