‘Pay your dues or go to jail’: SC to ex-Ranbaxy promoters

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday expressed dissatisfaction over the replies filed by former Ranbaxy promoters Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh in response to its March 14 direction asking them to submit a concrete plan for paying Rs 4,000 crore to Daiichi Sankyo as directed by a Singapore tribunal.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said it will now straightaway hear the contempt petition against the Singh brothers for non-payment of arbitral award amount to Japanese firm Daiichi Sankyo and send them to jail if violation of its orders is established.

The bench, also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, has now fixed the contempt petition of the Japanese firms against the former Ranbaxy promoters for hearing on April 11.

“You may be owning half of the world but there is no concrete plan as to how the arbitral amount would be realised. You said that somebody owed you Rs 6,000 crore. But this is neither here nor there,” the bench said.

The Japanese firm’s contempt plea against the Singh brothers seeks recovery of Rs 4,000 crore from them as directed by the Singapore tribunal.

Daiichi had bought Ranbaxy in 2008. Later, it had moved the Singapore arbitration tribunal accusing that the Singh brothers had concealed information that Ranbaxy was facing probe by the US Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Justice, while selling its shares.