Singh brothers row: Shivinder injured and assaulted me, says Malvinder

The feud between the Singh brothers escalated and took an ugly turn on Wednesday after the former managing director of Fortis Healthcare Malvinder Singh posted a WhatsApp video of him alleging that his younger brother Shivinder Singh assaulted him during a board meeting.

In the half a minute video, Malvinder alleged he was threatened and injured by Shivinder while showing his bruises.

"Today is December 5, 2018. Little over 6 pm, Shivinder Singh assaulted me at 55, Hanuman Road. He physically hit me, he hurt me, he broke my button, gave a bruise here and kept threatening me and refused to budge until the team here came together and separated him from me," said Malvinder in the video.

Malvinder Singh showing his injuries

According to a Times of India report, Malvinder alleged Shivinder tried to disrupt the board meeting of group company Prius Real Estate, which he claims has lent Rs 20 billion to firms owned by Gurinder Singh Dhillon. The board meeting was held to recover the said amount but Shivinder interrupted even though he is not a member, he added.

The report said Shivinder has denied the allegations as "false and fabricated", that it was the other way round and it was Malvinder who hit him. He added that he went to the police station but later withdrew it after requests from his mother.

In a picture shared in WhatsApp, Malvinder was seen with a cast on his right arm. He had to go to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital to get first-aid and sustained internal injuries where the doctor advised him to wear a cast, the TOI report added.

The rift between the Singh brothers started to widen after the duo lost Fortis Healthcare Limited and Religare Enterprises Ltd to the lenders. In September, NCLT allowed Shivinder to dismiss the case against his brother after the younger one along with his wife Aditi Singh, and his holding company Shivi Holdings filed a petition stating irregularities by Malvinder. He alleged that his elder brother Malvinder Singh and Sunil Godhwani were responsible for "systemic lapses", which had undermined the interests of their companies (RHC Holdings etc).

Shivinder said "repeated urging" by his mother and other family members prompted him to take the decision of withdrawing the plea.

Stressing that this is only a withdrawal of the application, and not the allegations, Shivinder’s lawyers claimed, “The two brothers cannot conduct business together, so a split is inevitable now. In RHC Holdings the brothers have equal shareholding through their investment arms Shivi Holdings and Malav Holdings. RHC has subsidiaries. Now, an equalisation of businesses has to happen,” said Ranjana Roy Gawai, counsel for Shivinder.

Speaking to Business Standard in September, Shivinder said one of them had to take the responsibility to handle the issues plaguing the group and resolve it in a manner that saved the group's entities from further damages. It is obvious that the monetary liability in the Daiichi case and other lenders would not be taken up by a single brother, he added.

He also clarified that his decision to dissociate from his brother stood. "To allay justifiable scepticism, let me be clear. The decision to disassociate from my brother and tread an independent path stands."