SEBI v. Best Healthcare Pvt. Ltd. and others (Fortis Healthcare fund diversion, 2022)

Judgment entered

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 8, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, in a single reading of the order; an independent second reading of 60 SEBI records agreed on every field for 56, the four misses being penalty amounts; a later sample of 50 of the SEBI records added on 9 October agreed on every field for 46. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

Report an error in this record (sebi-59032-misleading-issuer-disclosure-2022) by email

On 18 May 2022 a SEBI adjudicating officer penalised dozens of entities and executives in the Fortis Healthcare matter for a fraudulent scheme in which inter-corporate deposits were routed through three borrower companies to promoter-linked entities while the group's accounts misdescribed the money. Penalties were imposed individually, from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 5 crore.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

—

Penalty as published

388m INR

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars. This regulator states penalties in INR. The figure is recorded as published and is not converted, so it does not appear in the USD totals or medians used elsewhere on this site.

What is alleged to have happened

A SEBI adjudicating officer, G Ramar, decided the matter on 18 May 2022 in a single order covering many noticees. The order concerns Fortis Healthcare Ltd (FHL), a listed hospital group, its wholly owned subsidiary Fortis Hospitals Ltd, borrower companies Best Healthcare, Fern Healthcare and Modland Wears, other promoter-linked companies, and executives and audit committee members of the group. The promoters, Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh, are described as controlling the company through holding entities. This record names twelve of the penalised noticees.

SEBI opened its investigation in February 2018 after media reports about inter-corporate deposits (ICDs) granted to the three borrowers between 2011 and 2018. A forensic auditor appointed by SEBI reported that the funds were not used for the borrowers' business but went on to entities linked to the promoters, and that the ICDs were presented in the accounts in a way that misrepresented the position. The order records that FHL's board had approved lending to subsidiaries up to Rs 2,000 crore and that an addendum in November 2011 increased one ICD facility from Rs 20 crore to Rs 600 crore.

The officer held that the borrower and related companies had taken part in a fraudulent scheme that moved shareholders' money to promoter-linked parties, and that members of FHL's audit committee and of a subsidiary treasury committee had aided it through inaction and mechanical approval of financial statements over about seven years. The violations found were of section 12A and Regulations 3(b), (c), (d) and 4(1) of the 2003 fraudulent and unfair trade practices regulations, and for the audit committee members also of listing and disclosure rules.

The penalties were individual: Rs 5 crore each on Best Healthcare, Fern Healthcare and Modland Wears, Rs 1 crore each on twenty-two other entities including Escorts Heart Institute and Fortis Healthcare Holdings, and Rs 25 lakh each on the individuals listed in the order, among them the audit committee members Brian William Tempest, Pradeep Raniga and Harpal Singh and the treasury committee members Anurag Kalra and Jasbir Grewal. These add up to Rs 38.75 crore, which is the total shown in this record, although the order states the penalties per noticee.

The record does not show whether the penalties were appealed or paid, how the order treated noticees not penalised, or any criminal proceedings. The order is long and this summary follows only its structure and operative table.

This library tags the matter as misleading issuer disclosure. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the order.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Misleading issuer disclosure — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2022-05-18 SEBI order

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• SEBI order

The linked release is published by the issuing regulator under its own terms. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added October 8, 2026. submit a correction.