The court allowed probe agency to confront the accused with documents and witnesses
A Delhi court today sent former Fortis Healthcare promoter Malvinder Singh and a co-accused to two-week judicial custody in a money laundering case related to alleged misappropriation of funds at Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL).
Besides Malvinder Singh, the court remanded Sunil Godhwani, former Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL), to the judicial custody till December 12.
Additional Sessions Judge Sandeep Yadav passed the order after the accused were produced before the court on expiry of their custodial interrogation.
The accused were sent to Tihar central jail on applications moved by Enforcement Directorate's (ED) special public prosecutor Nitesh Rana, seeking 14-day judicial custody for them.
"Application/accused is remanded to judicial custody till December 12," the court said.
The court directed the Tihar jail Superintendent to consider, strictly in accordance with Jail Manual, two applications filed by Malvinder Singh seeking special diet on the ground that he had various ailments particularly stomach infection and for providing hot bathing water during winter, saying that he was suffering from severe chest infection.
The court on Wednesday allowed custodial interrogation of both the accused by the ED to confront them with some documents and witnesses in the case. The court passed the order on ED's plea challenging the trial court's order refusing to extend their custodial interrogation remand.
The probe agency had taken both into custody on November 14 from Tihar jail, where they had been lodged in a case filed by the Delhi Police in relation to the alleged scam.
Advocate AR Aditya, also representing the ED, said that both of them have been accused of laundering money, punishable under Sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
RFL is a group firm of REL, which was earlier promoted by Malvinder Singh and his brother Shivinder Singh.
Initially both the accused was in judicial custody with Shivinder Singh and two others- Kavi Arora and Anil Saxena- in a case filed by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police.
The ED alleged that both the brothers, along with others, transferred an amount of about Rs 1,000 crore to various persons from entities linked to the corporate loan book and finally, the money was siphoned off.
The agency started its investigation in the matter on the basis of a case lodged by the Delhi Police.
The EOW registered a First Information Report (FIR) in March after it received a complaint from RFL's Manpreet Suri against the Singh brothers and Sunil Godhwani and others, alleging that loans were taken by them while managing the firm but the money was invested in other companies.
"They put RFL in a poor financial condition by disbursing loans to companies with no financial standing and controlled by them. The companies to which the loans were disbursed willfully defaulted in repayments and caused a loss to RFL to the tune of Rs 2,397 crore," the police had alleged.