High Court sets aside bail granted to ex-Fortis Healthcare promoter Shivinder Singh

By LE Staff

New Delhi, June 15, 2021: The Delhi High Court has set aside an order granting bail to former Fortis Healthcare promoter Shivinder Mohan Singh in a case of allegedly misappropriating funds of Religare Finvest Ltd. 

A bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait said his detention was necessary to unearth the “conspiracy hatched by him” and trace the siphoned off money.

The High Court’s decision came yesterday on the plea of RFL challenging the March 3 order of the trial court granting bail to Shivinder in the case registered against him by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) for cheating, criminal conspiracy and criminal breach of trust.

The “nature and gravity of the accusation against respondent No.2 (Shivinder) is serious”, the High Court said, allowing RFL’s plea.

“The grant of bail in a case involving cheating, criminal breach of interest by an agent of such a large magnitude of money, affecting a very large number of people would also have an adverse impact not only on the progress of the case but also on the trust of the criminal justice system that people repose,” Justice Kait said in the 29 page judgement setting aside the bail granted to Shivinder by the trial court.

“Keeping in mind the factual matrix of the present case as also the pertinent observations of the Supreme Court in various decisions, I have no hesitation to hold that the impugned order suffers from serious infirmities, resulting in miscarriage of justice. Moreover, continued detention of respondent No.2 in this FIR case is necessary not only to unearth the conspiracy hatched by him, but also to derive out/ trace the siphoned money which he has credited for his personal benefit,” the order further said.

The EOW of Delhi Police registered an FIR in March 2019 after it received a complaint from RFL”s Manpreet Suri against Shivinder, former CMD of Religare Enterprises Limited (REL) Sunil Godhwani and former CEO of RFL Kavi Arora and others, alleging that loans were taken by them while managing the firm but the money was invested in other companies.

According to the prosecution, RFL’s authorised representative Manpreet Suri alleged that these accused put RFL in poor financial condition by disbursing loans to entities having no financial standings and willfully defaulted in repayments thereby caused wrongful loss to RFL to the tune of ₹ 2,397 crore.