Fortis Healthcare, the hospital chain promoted by Singh brothers is under SFIO (Serious Fraud Investigation Office) scanner. Minister of state for Corporate Affairs P.P. Chaudhry today said that the ministry has ordered an investigation into the affairs of Fortis Healthcare on 17th February. During the investigation process all the issues in their entirety will be examined by the SFIO.
The promoters – Shivinder Singh and Malvinder Singh have been accused of financial irregularities and fund siphoning which forced them to resign from the board recently.
The brothers are also facing a lawsuit brought by New York-based private equity firm Siguler Guff & Co., which accused them of “siphoning” money out of another publicly traded firm they control, to help them manage their personal debts, according to documents filed with the Delhi High Court.
The small business lending arm of the Singhs’, Religare Enterprises Ltd., made 21 loans to a number of seemingly independent companies that routed at least $300 million back to firms closely held by Singh on the same day, according to a central bank investigation of the company’s 2016 fiscal books filed in Delhi as part of the suit.
The siblings faced another setback after a Delhi court ruled that $550 million awarded against them in Singapore is enforceable in India. A Singapore tribunal had said the Singhs must pay damages and interest to drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo Co., for concealing critical information during the sale of their generic drug firm, Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd., to the Japanese company in 2008.
The SFIO has completed 118 investigations in 2017-18 so far and 365 cases are pending with it.