Kingfisher Airlines faces a US$21.6 million (Dh79.3m) court action for overdue aircraft leasing payments.
Creditors of the struggling Indian carrier plan to pursue Kingfisher through its parent company United Breweries.
The Bank of Scotland was understood yesterday to be putting together a court action on behalf of a consortium of lenders to recover the money following a ruling by the High Court in London.
According to court documents, the judge presiding in the case ruled the lenders could proceed against United Breweries, which has been underwriting Kingfisher's operations.
"I am satisfied that the amounts claimed are due and owing and that therefore in those circumstances the claimants are entitled to summary judgement in the sum claimed, that is US$21,589,972.56 [and that] no other good reason [had been presented as to why the case should not proceed to trial]," said Mr Justice Bernard Eder.
The judgement paves the way for an action in India, or the UK, to allow Bank of Scotland to pursue United Breweries' assets to recover the outstanding sum.
The aircraft leased to Kingfisher, 10 ATR turbo-prop airliners, had been bought by a syndicate through KF Turbo Leasing, a special-purpose company incorporated in the Cayman Islands, to lease the aircraft to Kingfisher under a 10-year contract in 2007.
However a spokesman for the bank would only say it was "not in a position to make any comment, as our banking relationships with our customers are confidential".
The news came after Kingfisher cancelled nearly a fifth of its flights on Monday, including one between New Delhi and Dubai, and at least four yesterday, after more than a dozen pilots refused to turn up for duty because they had not been paid.
Hopes of a bank bailout were also dashed, when Namo Narain Meena, the Indian government's junior minister of finance, delivered a written reply to parliamentary questions, ruling out any additional loans by the State Bank of India to Kingfisher. The state-run bank is the biggest lender to the cash-strapped airline, with a total debt exposure of 14bn rupees (Dh1.03bn). It also holds a 5.7 per cent stake in the airline, acquired after the conversion of other loans last year.
Yesterday, as Kingfisher flights continued to be cancelled, Vijay Mallya, the chairman of the airline, who also owns United Breweries, described the flight disruptions as "planned cancellations".
"We spoke to our pilots. We are sorting it out," Mr Mallya said, speaking outside the Indian parliament. "We are facing a serious handicap as our accounts are frozen. We are not asking for bailout from the government, but hope for help from [the] banking sector to de-freeze our accounts."
Last month, Kingfisher was forced to file a new timetable to India's aviation regulator, the director general of civil aviation, cutting daily flights by almost two thirds to 175, and its available aircraft from 64 to 28.
Kingfisher said its schedule was also affected after the company was suspended last week by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) from its global payments system.
The suspension effectively cut off Kingfisher from a vast network of travel agencies that book tickets online with payments cleared through IATA.
Kingfisher, which has never turned a profit and has sunk deeper into debt since its launch in 2005, has run a reduced flight schedule in recent weeks amid growing fears for its survival.
Mr Mallya has said the airline needed $200m to $250m immediately to secure its future.
Its net loss widened sharply to 4.44bn rupees (Dh326.6m) in the three months to December from a loss of 2.54bn rupees a year earlier, while its debt totals at least $1.3bn.
