Delhi HC asks Ranbaxy, Fortis' garnishees to deposit Rs 6,000 crore

Garnishees include former spiritual guru of younger brother Shivinder Mohan Singh, money to be deposited within 30 days

The Delhi High Court has asked 55 entities, including the head of Radha Saomi Satsang Beas, to deposit all the amount they owe to Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh, the former promoters of Ranbaxy Laboratories and Fortis Healthcare, with the court’s registry within 30 days.

A single-judge Bench of Justice J R Midha has also asked the 55 garnishees not to “dispose of, alienate, encumber directly or indirectly or otherwise part with the possession of any assets to the tune of the amount mentioned”. The total amount of the assets is said to be around Rs 6000 crore.

The garnishees include the former spiritual guru of the younger brother Shivinder Mohan Singh, as well as other companies such as Magnus Finance, Religare Cap Market, Tiger Developers, and individuals such as Sanjay Godhwani, among others.

The garnishee companies include those individuals and firms which owe money to the Singh brothers, who in turn owe around Rs 3500 crore to Daiichi Sankyo.

The Japanese drug major has been fighting a prolonged legal battle with the Singh brothers to get its Rs 3,500-crore arbitration award, based on the judgment by a tribunal. A tribunal in Singapore had held the Singh brothers guilty of lying and concealing information when they had sold their stake in Ranbaxy Laboratories to Daiichi Sankyo in 2008. The tribunal had held that the brothers had, while selling their stake in Ranbaxy to Daiichi in 2008, hidden information regarding a probe the company was facing from the US Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Justice.

To resolve the potential civil and criminal liability that could have arisen due to the suit by both the US agencies, Daiichi had agreed to pay $500 million as part of the settlement agreement. Daiichi had later sold its stake in Ranbaxy to Sun Pharmaceutical Industries in 2015 for a sum of Rs 22,679 crore.

Apart from the garnishee companies, the high court has also asked the Singh brothers, and their companies to file a fresh affidavit detailing their assets as of date, including the details of the assets that they had transferred, the money received from such transaction, and the details of the person who bought the said properties. These details will also have to be submitted with the registrar of the high court within 30 days, the single-judge Bench said in its order. The case will be next heard on November 14.