Former Ranbaxy owners Malvinder and Shivinder Singh remanded to police custody for 4 days

Former Ranbaxy owners Malvinder and Shivinder Singh and three others have been remanded to police custody for four days in a case relating to misappropriation of funds on a complaint lodged by Religare FinVest Limited, legal website barandbench.com has reported.

The order to remand the accused to the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police was passed by Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Saket District Court, Deepak Sehrawat.

Interestingly, Shivinder Singh, the younger of the two siblings, not only argued for himself but also chose not to oppose the request for police custody, submitting before the court that, “I believe I'm a victim of the fraud... And I'll take the opportunity to assist the agency in the investigation."

Malvinder Singh’s counsel, however, opposed the custody on the ground that he had joined the investigation and had answered questions put to him to the best of his ability.

Senior Counsel Vikas Pahwa, representing the complainant in the case, countered Malvinder's argument by saying that the investigating officer's job is not to recover the money, but to ascertain the commission of an offence and for this, the custodial interrogation was required.

The EOW had arrested the former promoters of pharma giant Ranbaxy on Thursday. Shivinder Singh was detained by the Delhi Police on Thursday, while the elder brother Malvinder Singh was nabbed late on Thursday night from Punjab. Sunil Godhwani, former CMD of Religare, and two others were also arrested by the Police.

The arrest comes in a complaint concerning Religare Enterprises which was under the absolute control of the Singh Brothers. Manpreet Suri of Religare Finvest accused the brothers of siphoning off funds and misappropriation of funds to the tune of Rs 740 crore. This complaint which was filed in December 2018 led to the brothers being charged with cheating, fraud, and misappropriation of funds.

Shivinder Singh owned 85% stake in Religare Enterprises which controlled Religare Finvest at the time the alleged offence was committed. Godhwani was the CMD while the other two accused - Kavi Arora and Anil Saxena - held crucial managerial positions in Religare Enterprises at the time, as per the report published on the legal website.