A three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court has declined to interfere with an NCLAT order directing that provident fund, gratuity and pension dues owed to former Jet Airways employees be paid in full, treating them as falling outside the corporate debtor's liquidation estate. Lenders led by SBI had argued these dues should instead form part of the liquidation estate and be shared under the IBC's distribution waterfall, unless a dedicated PF or gratuity fund existed at the commencement of liquidation.
The Bench found the lenders' legal points arguable in the abstract, but declined to interfere given the particular facts of Jet Airways' long-running and fact-heavy liquidation, leaving the underlying legal question — whether employee retiral dues require a dedicated fund to sit outside the waterfall — open for a future case where it is more squarely presented.
For resolution professionals, liquidators and secured lenders, the practical effect is that provident fund, gratuity and pension dues can be treated as trust monies sitting outside the liquidation waterfall even without a dedicated fund, at least on facts resembling Jet Airways' — a result that reduces what secured creditors can expect to recover but protects employees' full statutory retiral entitlements ahead of general distribution.