Religare Finvest Case: ED Arrests ex-Fortis Promoter Malvinder Singh

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday arrested former Fortis Healthcare promoter Malvinder Singh and former CMD of Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL) Sunil Godhwani in a money-laundering case related to alleged misappropriation of funds of Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL).

The ED took both the accused in its custody inside the Tihar central jail here, where they are currently lodged in a case filed by the Delhi Police in relation to the alleged scam.

A court here was informed about the development by the agency's lawyer, Nitesh Rana, who urged it to issue a production warrant against the accused for seeking their custodial interrogation.

The court, however, directed that the accused be produced before a metropolitan magistrate in the central jail itself since trial prisoners are not being produced in the Saket District Court, either physically or through video conference, due to the ongoing lawyers' strike.

"The court is informed that accused Malvinder Mohan Singh and Sunil Godhwani are lodged in central jail numbers 8 and 7, respectively, at Tihar Jail. Accordingly, the applications filed by the ED be put up before the concerned duty MM, Tihar jail tomorrow, i.e, November 15, for disposal in accordance with law," Special Judge Sandeep Yadav said.

Both Singh and Godhwani are accused of laundering money, punishable under sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the ED said.

They were in judicial custody along with Singh's brother Shivinder and two others -- Kavi Arora and Anil Saxena -- in a case filed by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police.

RFL is a group firm of REL, which was earlier promoted by the Singh brothers.

According to the ED, both the accused, along with others, transferred an amount of approximately Rs 1,000 crore to various persons from entities linked to the corporate loan book and finally, the money was siphoned off.

The agency started its investigation in the matter on the basis of a case lodged by the Delhi Police.

Malvinder (46), Shivinder (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 an FIR in March after it received a complaint from RFL's Manpreet Suri against Shivinder, 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.