The Fortis Healthcare saga has seemingly taken an ugly turn as the younger brother Shivinder Singh of the company's founding family has dragged his elder brother to court amid allegations of the latter’s oppression and mismanagement of group companies.
“I have filed a case against Malvinder and Sunil Godhwani in the NCLT (National Company Law Tribunal) for oppression and mismanagement of RHC Holding, Religare and Fortis,” Shivinder stated in a late evening release on Tuesday.
“This release comes in the aftermath of the legal and financial issues surrounding our joint companies. For two decades now, Malvinder and I, Shivinder Mohan Singh, have been synonymous with one another. Though the fact is, I have all along been the publicly supportive younger brother to Malvinder’s Chairmanship of the group, who took decisions on behalf of the family,” he stated.
In 2015, Shivinder had taken retirement to relegate himself to Radha Soami Beas Satsang.
“While the group businesses were in “Competent” hands, rnt management of the sale of the group’s then flagship — Ranbaxy to Daiichi — culminating in one of the most damaging Arbitrated flags have crept up in the group with disturbing regularity. Decisions taken in Religare’s NBFC arm, the transaction and subsequeion cases in the history of India Inc., the unimaginable losses accumulated in running a private charter airline business (Ligare aviation), all these only go to show that the malaise is systemic,” he said.
“Sensitivity to the family business’ reputation has refrained me from making any public or private statements despite my family’s and my personal trauma. My family reputation kept me a silent spectator, as I mutely watched the organisation I founded come to a point where it was publicly auctioned, where my family and myself have been stripped of our legacy, our finances and my personal credibility,” he added.
He said that the articles in media against RSSB — where the brothers have allegedly diverted thousands of crores — were planted in an attempt to pass the buck to an eminent figure, possibly referring to Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the head of RSSB and the brothers' uncle.
“While it saddens me immensely and I wish Malvinder well, I can no longer be party to activities in which transparency and ethics are continuously and consistently negated. It has come to a point where this means that I am now disassociating from my brother as a business partner and will be pursuing an independent path going forward," he said.
The proposed $1-billion deal with Malaysian healthcare group IHH was approved last month as Shareholders of Fortis Healthcare voted in its favour. IHH will infuse ₹4,000 crore for equity shares at ₹170 per share initially and later initiate an open offer for additional stake.
The brothers’ woes started as they were allegedly found to be bungling away close to ₹500 crore out of the company into other companies, as reported by internal investigation carried out by Luthra and Luthra law firm, at the behest of the current board.
Also, the non-payment of over ₹3,500 crore, including interest to Japanese pharma giant Daiichi-Sankyo, led to an arbitration in Singapore and the award was declared to be paid by Fortis to Daiichi-Sankyo, hangs like a Sword of Damocles over the brothers’ heads.