Daiichi case: Singh brothers to be jailed if guilty of contempt, warns SC

The Supreme Court on Friday expressed dissatisfaction over the replies filed by former Ranbaxy promoters Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh in response to its March 14 direction asking them to submit a concrete plan for paying Rs 4,000 crore to Daiichi Sankyo as directed by a Singapore tribunal.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said it will now straightaway hear the contempt petition against the Singh brothers for non-payment of arbitral award amount to Japanese firm Daiichi Sankyo and send them to jail if violation of its orders is established.

The bench, also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, has now fixed the contempt petition of the Japanese firms against the former Ranbaxy promoters for hearing on April 11.

"You may be owning half of the world but there is no concrete plan as to how the arbitral amount would be realised. You said that somebody owed you Rs 6,000 crore. But this is neither here nor there," the bench said.

The Japanese firm's contempt plea against the Singh brothers seeks recovery of Rs 4,000 crore from them as directed by the Singapore tribunal.

Daiichi had bought Ranbaxy in 2008. Later, it had moved the Singapore arbitration tribunal accusing that the Singh brothers had concealed information that Ranbaxy was facing probe by the US Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Justice, while selling its shares.

The timeline of the Daiichi case:
 

Authority	Defendant’s	Date of filing of complaint/ hearing	Complainant	Reason
Supreme Court	Malvinder Mohan Singh Shivinder Mohan Singh	March 14, 2019	DaiiChi Sankyo	Enforcement of the arbitration award by the Singapore International Court of Arbitration
SEBI	-	February 13, 2019	Fortis Healthcare	Recovery of ICDs,
Economic Offences wing, SEBI, Delhi High Court,	Malvinder Mohan Singh Shivinder Mohan Singh	24 Jan, 2019	Whistle blowers  from Religare and Fortis	Selling of unencumbered assets
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police Ministry of Corporate Affairs	Malvinder Mohan Singh Shivinder Mohan Singh Sunil Godhwani NK Ghosal	Criminal Complaint lodged on 20 December, 2018. FIR filed	Religare Finvest & Religare Enterprises ltd (section 210,212,447 of the companies act)	Recovery of Rs 2315 crores
SEBI	Malvinder Mohan Singh Shivinder Mohan Singh	OCT 18, 2018	SEBI	Directed Singh brothers to jointly repay Rs 4.03 billion with interest to Fortis Healthcare
Delhi High Court	Malvinder Mohan Singh Shivinder Mohan Singh	August 2, 2018	Daiichi Sankyo	Froze all bank accounts.
Delhi High Court	Malvinder Mohan Singh Shivinder Mohan Singh	May , 2016	-	Upheld the award. Maintain status quo
Singapore International Court of Arbitration	Malvinder Mohan Singh Shivinder Mohan Singh	!4, November, 2012	Daiichi Sankyo	Fraud and misleading information regarding the sale of Ranbaxy