United Breweries (Holdings) Ltd on Wednesday sought permission from the Karnataka High Court to withdraw Rs 13.07 crore from the fixed deposit, maintained in the banks on court’s direction, to pay one month’s salary on “humanitarian grounds” to the employees of Kingfisher Airlines Ltd (KAL).
In an application submitted before a Division Bench comprising Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice B. Manohar, UBHL said the company wants to withdraw Rs 13.07 crore out of Rs 379.75 crore kept in the deposit account of the company.
However, United Breweries (Holdings) has made it clear that it is only one of the promoters of KAL and it has no legal liability to pay salaries to either the present or the past employees of KAL.
Therefore, it is making such an application purely on "humanitarian grounds" as it has received representation from the Chief Finance Officer of KAL.
"There are 2,126 employees at KAL and none of them has been paid their salaries since August 2012,” UBHL stated in the application.
The UBHL has also stated in the application that KAL has prepared "a robust revival plan," which is under consideration by the Director General of Civil Aviation, New Delhi (DGCA).
The Bench adjourned further hearing on the application to September 30, while asking the creditors of KAL and UBHL to file their response to this application.
Audited statements
Meanwhile, the UBHL submitted the audited statement of utilisation of Rs 1,460.36 crore received by selling 1.01 crore shares of United Spirits Ltd to British liquor major Diageo Plc.
The statement was submitted before Justice Ram Mohan Reddy, who is hearing petitions seeking court direction for winding up KAL and UBHL for recovering money due to various creditors.
The audited statement pointed out that of the sale proceed — Rs 820.05 core was used to pay various borrowers towards loans, about Rs 11 crore was spent towards legal expenses on sale of shares to Diageo, Rs 250 crore has been kept in Bank of Maharashtra fixed deposit and Rs 365 crore in fixed deposit of Lakshmi Vilas Bank as per court direction and Rs 14 crore in company’s current account.
Justice Reddy, while asking the petitioner-creditor firms to file their response to the audited statement, has postponed further hearing to October 21.