Delhi Police registers case against Niira Radia for alleged loan fraud

The Economic Offence Wing of Delhi Police has registered an FIR against Nayati Healthcare's Niira Radia and four others for alleged embezzlement of over Rs 300 crore of bank loan, following a complaint filed by orthopaedic surgeon Rajiv Sharma from whom they had acquired two hospitals.

Rejecting the allegations as baseless, Nayati Healthcare said it had "duly reported" to the police certain issues of "misappropriation and maliceness" detected in a forensic audit of activities of the previous management under Sharma.

Sharma's OSL Healthcare, which had a hospital in south Delhi and an upcoming facility in Gurgaon, was acquired through Naarayani Investment Pvt Ltd and later renamed as Nayati Healthcare NCR.

According to the FIR dated November 4, Sharma has accused Naarayani Investment Pvt Ltd, Niira Radia, Karuna Menon, Satish Narula and Yateesh Wahaal of "cheating, criminal breach of trust, falsification of accounts, fraud, forgery, embezzlement of funds" and other charges.

Police sources said all the charges are subject to investigation as of now.

In his complaint, Sharma has alleged that Naarayani had borrowed more than Rs 600 crore from various sources, including DHFL, and invested Rs 311 crore for acquiring a majority stake in Nayati Healthcare NCR.

After taking over management of the new entity, Naarayani and the four individuals got a loan of Rs 300 crore from Yes Bank for the development of a Gurgaon hospital, but instead, they siphoned off and embezzled the loan amount using fictitious transactions, Sharma alleged.

He further alleged that the accused also borrowed Rs 60 crore from Yes Bank for another hospital project, but embezzled that fund as well.

Sharma also alleged that the five accused wrongfully brought down his stake in Nayati Healthcare NCR from 49 per cent to 6.3 per cent in less than a year and increased their own stake to 93.7 per cent.

When contacted, a Nayati Healthcare spokesperson said, "The FIR is baseless and the allegations of Dr Sharma are also baseless."

The spokesperson further said, "Dr Sharma being a member of the board was a party and signatory to all the actions of the company. Due to differences that arose pursuant to conducting of a forensic audit of the activities of the previous management under Dr Sharma, certain issues of misappropriation and malicenses came to light."

"These issues were taken up with Dr Sharma and was duly reported to the police in the form of a complaint," it said.

The spokesperson also said, "Nayati Healthcare NCR remains committed to cooperating with investigations and reposes its full faith in the investigating agency. All evidence of the forensic audit that demonstrates act of misappropriation by Dr Sharma has been provided to the police."

Nayati Healthcare, set up a few years ago by PR consultant-turned-entrepreneur Radia, had in 2018 announced acquisition of 51 per cent stake in OSL Healthcare, which was at that time headed by Sharma.

Nayati also has other hospitals including in Mathura and Agra.