The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an interim bail application of former Ranbaxy Executive and Fortis Healthcare promoter Shivinder Mohan Singh, who along with others, is accused of misappropriating Rs 2,397 crore of Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL) funds.
Singh had sought interim bail for a short period on “humanitarian grounds” for helping his ailing mother to take part in the last rituals of his maternal uncle, who died on March 8 in Haryana.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, while opposing the bail plea, argued that there is a "serious flight risk."
“We are of the opinion that the presence of the accused was not a must...,” said a bench of Justices M R Shah and B V Neurasthenias while dismissing the plea. The bench heard the submissions of senior lawyer Gopal Jain, appearing for the jailed accused, Mehta on behalf of Delhi Police, and senior advocate R Basant, representing the complainant in the case.
In May last year, the Delhi High Court had canceled Singh's bail, noting that his detention was necessary to unearth the "conspiracy hatched by him" and trace the alleged siphoned-off money. The order was passed on a plea by Religare challenging the March 3 order of the trial court granting bail to Singh in the case registered against him by the EOW under charges of cheating, criminal conspiracy, and criminal breach of trust.
Singh had moved the top court against the Delhi High Court cancelling the bail granted to him by a trial court in the case.
The economic offences wing (EOW) had registered an FIR in March 2019 after it received a complaint from RFL's Manpreet Suri against Shivinder, former Religare Enterprises Limited (REL) CMD Sunil Godhwani, former RFL CEO 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 Suri alleged that the accused put RFL in poor financial condition by disbursing loans to entities having no financial standings and willfully defaulted in repayments, thereby causing wrongful loss to RFL to the tune of Rs 2,397 crore.
(With inputs from Aneesha Mathur, and agencies)