Ex-Fortis Healthcare promoters' wives duped | Economic Times

Wives of former Religare promoters Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, who are currently in Tihar jail, claim to have paid crores of rupees to conmen to secure bail for their husbands and ensure their safety, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.Days after reports came out that Shivinder’s wife Aditi Singh was allegedly duped of several crores of rupees by conman Sukesh Chandrasekhar, Malvinder’s wife Japna Singh in a complaint to the Delhi Police said she has paid crores to conmen impersonating themselves as high government functionaries who offered to help release her husband on bail.The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police has registered two separate FIRs on the complaints of the wives of the embattled Singh brothers facing cases registered by the Delhi Police and Enforcement Directorate (ED), the sources said.As per the FIR based on Japna’s complaint, one of the conmen instructed her to make payment to a company based out of Hong Kong, claiming that the said account was an overseas account of the ruling “party”, sources said.One of the accused, one Krishan Kumar allegedly took a list of pending income-tax matters of RHC Holdings Private Ltd and others from Japna and sought information with regard to a case relating to Malvinder Singh pending in the Supreme Court.The conmen, as per the FIRs, avoided meeting in person with the two wives, people cited above told ET.Japna Singh claims to have paid a total of `3.5 crore in the said Hong Kong account on July 28, 29, 30 and August 6. She has shared proof of payments with the Delhi Police, sources said.She has also told the police in her complaint that during one of her meetings with Malvinder Singh in Tihar jail she had informed her husband that she had received a demand for contribution of funds towards the BJP from certain “high functionaries”. However, she chose not to divulge specific details with Malvinder to ensure that the mental health of her husband is not adversely affected, Japna has stated in her complaint, said the sources.Her complaint further states that she received a call from a landline number on August 7 assuring her that Malvinder’s safety is taken care of for the time being. After that she tried contacting the two accused, but to no avail.Japna claims to have read a news item on August 12 about Sukesh Chandrasekhar and his associates allegedly duping Aditi Singh of approximately Rs 200 crore by falsely impersonating as government officials. Japna claims that it was then that she realised that she also had been duped by conmen.Japna has further alleged that one of the accused asked her to transfer Rs 350 lakh in a government fund. She has claimed that she was constrained to ask her daughter to pay Rs 50 lakh in the said government fund.Additional Commissioner in the Economic Offences Wing of Delhi Police RK Singh in an official statement, last week, had said, “She (Aditi Singh) reported that she received a call in June 2020, on her mobile phone and in which the caller introduced himself as a senior officer in Ministry of Law and proposed to help her in securing bail for her husband.” Legal teams of Aditi Singh and Japna Singh when reached out by ET confirmed the registration of the FIRs but refused to comment further on the issue.People in the know told ET that the accused used this tactic to give a false belief to Singh that they were closely associated with the government.