India’s Supreme Court on Friday rejected petitions challenging the country’s bankruptcy laws, including a rule that bans owners of insolvent firms from bidding to buy back assets auctioned as part of the bankruptcy proceedings, Reuters reported. The ruling upheld fledgling bankruptcy and insolvency rules and is expected to pave the way for banks to recover billions of dollars from bankrupt firms mired in litigation, lawyers said.

First, it was the IL&FS Group that ran out of money. Now that the bankrupt Indian infrastructure lender-operator has been sequestered from creditors, the country’s securitization industry is on borrowed time, a Bloomberg View reported. It all began on Tuesday with S&P Global’s Indian affiliate, Crisil, downgrading Jharkhand Road Projects Implementation Co.’s annuity-backed bonds to D after it skipped interest and principal payments. It’s a strategic default on an instrument rated AA just last week. The borrower had money.

Cash-strapped Jet Airways Ltd has flown straight into a storm, resulting in a major setback for India’s largest full-service airline that could shake up the country’s aviation industry, Reuters reported. Jet, which has debt exceeding 80 billion rupees ($1.12 billion) as of September-end, has been steadily losing market share to its rival and low-cost carrier IndiGo, which is owned by InterGlobe Aviation Ltd. Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways, Jet’s second-largest shareholder, is now in talks with creditors for a deal that could help the airline back on its feet.

To have one airline limping forward on the brink of bankruptcy may be regarded as a misfortune. To have two looks like carelessness. That’s the fundamental problem for India’s aviation industry, home to the critically ill Jet Airways India Ltd. and its state-owned rival Air India Ltd., which more or less died in 2012 but has been kept on life support thanks to ongoing infusions of taxpayer cash, a Bloomberg View reported. Facing collapse, Jet has been trying to restructure its debt and seeking bailout money from founder Naresh Goyal and leading shareholder Etihad Airways PJSC.

Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd., which sent a shock through Indian financial markets last year when it defaulted on debt, faces a much-awaited coupon payment due Friday on overseas bonds, Bloomberg News reported. The so-called dim sum bonds, or offshore yuan-denominated bonds, are guaranteed by IL&FS Transportation Networks Ltd., a unit of IL&FS which has already defaulted on interest payments due on five rupee-denominated bonds, according to a Dec. 31 filing.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi rode to power five years ago on his business friendly credentials and the promise of generating millions of jobs. Now an airline is on the verge of collapse, bringing Modi’s image under attack just months before national elections, Bloomberg News reported. Struggling in a competitive market where basic air fares can get as low as 2 cents, Jet Airways India Ltd., the country’s second-biggest airline, has piled on $1.1 billion in debt and failed to pay loans and salaries.

Errant debtors are forever looking for ways to undermine creditor protection; but when lenders themselves start making a mockery of a fledgling insolvency law, nobody can save it, a Bloomberg View reported. That’s where India’s two-year-old bankruptcy regime is today, brought to the brink of irrelevance by the strain of resolving its most high-profile case: Essar Steel India Ltd. The billionaire Ruia brothers have used every trick in the book to ensure their prized asset stays in the family, despite owing financial creditors 508 billion rupees ($6.3 billion) in unpaid dues.

In a related story, Reuters reported that Etihad Airways has offered to invest in debt-laden Indian carrier Jet Airways Ltd at 150 rupees ($2.11) per share, along with an immediate release of $35 million after certain conditions are met, CNBC-TV18 reported here on Wednesday, citing sources. The offer comes at a staggering 49 percent discount to Jet’s closing price of 293.70 rupees on Tuesday. Jet Airways shares tumbled after the report, falling as much as 7.5 percent to 271.75 rupees in their biggest intraday percentage loss since Dec. 10, 2018.

Jet Airways India Ltd. is working with lenders to revamp its debt as the struggling carrier tries to shore up its financials after recording losses in nine of the past eleven years in a market known for ultra-low fares, Bloomberg News reported. The carrier is working on “various options on the debt-equity mix, proportion of equity infusion,” the Mumbai-based company said in a statement on Wednesday. Among options considered by the lenders led by State Bank of India Ltd.

Shares in Jet Airways, the troubled Indian airline, jumped nearly 16 per cent on Monday after local media reported that it was poised to agree on a resolution plan this week, with shareholder Etihad Airways pumping in new capital, the Financial Times reported. Jet has been locked in financial crisis for months, after a jump in oil prices last year further weakened a business already strained by intense competition from Indian budget airlines.