Singh brothers sent to 14-day judicial custody

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Thursday sent former

Religare promoters

Malvinder Singh,

his brother Shivinder

and three others to 14 days judicial custody in an alleged case of misappropriation of funds of Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL) and causing losses of Rs 2,397 crore to the firm.

Besides Singh brothers, metropolitan magistrate Nishant Garg sent Sunil Godhwani, Kavi Arora and Anil Saxena to judicial custody.

Senior advocate Jana Kalyan Das, who represented the complainant, said the court posted the hearing on the bail applications of all the accused to Friday. It was alleged that all the accused had left the company in a poor financial condition by disbursing loans to companies having no financial standing, which were controlled by them. Police highlighted that during its investigation, it received an RBI report stating that shareholding pattern of the promoters showed that the companies were related to the entities.

EOW

said that loans were given on the recommendation of the promoters as the owners of the borrowing entities had good relations with them. “The forensic audit report obtained from

SEBI

revealed that Rs 1,260 crore was diverted to RHC Holding Pvt Ltd, which has 100% shareholding of promoters Malvinder and Shivinder,” EOW added.

On the last hearing, the remand was not contested by Shivinder and the company’s ex-CMD Sunil Godhwani and former top executive Anil Saxena, Malvinder and Kavi Arora, the former chairman and managing director of

Religare Enterprises Ltd

(REL), contended that the FIR was lodged in March and the accused had cooperated in the investigation.

Malvinder’s counsel, Manu Sharma, had argued that his client had joined the EOW probe and answered all the questions for which his custody was not required. Shivinder told the court, “I’m a victim of the fraud. I take this opportunity to help the case.”