A Delhi court has sent Malvinder Singh, former promoter of Fortis Healthcare Ltd., and Sunil Godhwani, ex-chairman of Religare Enterprises Ltd., to Enforcement Directorate's custody till Nov.18 for allegedly misappropriating funds of Religare Finvest Ltd.
A duty magistrate sent both the accused to ED's custody in a proceeding held inside the Tihar Jail. ED Special Public Prosecutor Nitesh Rana sought 14-day custody of Singh and Godhwani, but the court directed the agency to produce them before the court concerned on Monday.
The ED had on Nov. 14 arrested Singh and Godhwani in the money-laundering case, punishable under Sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2010. They were in judicial custody along with Malvinder Singh's brother Shivinder Singh and two others—Kavi Arora and Anil Saxena—in a case filed by the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police.
Religare Finvest is a group firm of Religare Enterprises, which was earlier promoted by the Singh brothers. Both the accused, along with others, transferred an amount of about Rs 1,000 crore to various persons from entities linked to the corporate loan book and finally, the money was siphoned off, according to the ED.
The agency started its investigation in the matter on the basis of a case lodged by the Delhi Police. Malvinder Singh (46), Shivinder Singh (44), Godhwani (58), Arora (48) and Saxena were arrested by the Delhi Police's EOW for allegedly diverting the money and investing in other companies.
The EOW registered a first investigaton report in March after it received a complaint from Religare Finvest's Manpreet Suri against Shivinder Singh, Godhwani and others, alleging that loans were taken by them while managing the firm but the money was invested in other companies.
"They put RFL in a poor financial condition by disbursing loans to companies with no financial standing and controlled by them. The companies to which the loans were disbursed willfully defaulted in repayments and caused a loss to RFL to the tune of Rs 2,397 crore," the police had alleged.
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