RSSB guru and his family ordered to repay up to $842 million

Thanks to a comment left on a post today by a blog visitor, I learned that a financial noose is tightening around the necks of Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family, who, along with others, have been ordered to pay 6,000 crore rupees to RHC Holding -- which equals $842 million.

UPDATE: Someone just sent me a photo of the print version of the story. 

Here's how an Economic Times story, "Daiichi Sankyo-Ranbaxy case: HC asks Radha Soami head, 54 others to deposit Rs 6,000 crore," starts out (HC refers to the High Court of Delhi in India).

Download Daiichi Sankyo-Ranbaxy case: HC asks Radha Soami head 54 others to deposit Rs 6 000 crore

NEW DELHI: Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the spiritual head of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), his family members and associates are among 55 individuals and entities ordered by a court to pay over Rs 6,000 crore owed to RHC Holding in connection with the settlement of a dispute related to Daiichi Sankyo’s acquisition of Ranbaxy Laboratories.

The Delhi high court ordered Dhillonʼs wife Shabnam, sons Gurkirat and Gurpreet and daughter-in-law Nayan Tara, among others, to pay up the amount due to RHC Holding, the flagship holding company of the Singh brothers who formerly owned Ranbaxy. Money will also be recovered from former Religare Enterprises chief Sunil Godhwani and his brother Sanjay Godhwani. The non-banking financial services conglomerate was formerly promoted by Malvinder and Shivinder Singh.

The amount should be deposited with the courtʼs registrar general within 30 days, according to the order dated September 27. Any party disputing the claim should file an affidavit to place their contention on record, Justice JR Midha said in the order, which ET reviewed. The entities cannot “dispose of, alienate, encumber directly or indirectly, part with the possession of any assets, except in the ordinary course of business like payment of salary and statutory dues, till the next date of hearing.”

Back in March I wrote a blog post based on reporting in the Indian financial press, "RSSB guru now faced with repaying $909 million in allegedly fraudulent loans." Excerpt:

I keep writing about this Indian financial saga, which could provide the plot for a great Bollywood movie, because it shows up so clearly the hypocrisy of many religious leaders.

The guru who leads a sect that teaches the goal of life is to purify the soul and mind so they can rise to higher spiritual regions has devoted himself to amassing worldly riches in a highly dubious manner, using his position as the head of RSSB to make himself rich. 

It'll be interesting to see if Malvinder succeeds in getting the money back from the RSSB guru and others. Hopefully he will. Gurus can't hold themselves above the law, even though their devotees often try to excuse their actions with a variety of unconvincing excuses: "It's God's will...this is a test of our faith...gurus work in mysterious ways...blah, blah, blah."

Well, it looks increasingly likely that Gurinder Singh Dhillon, his family, and close associates are going to have to come up with as much as $842 million by the end of October.

The exact amount to be gotten from these sources is a bit unsure, even though it seems clear that most (or all) of the 55 entities mentioned in the Economic Times story are connected to the RSSB guru in some fashion.

The big remaining question, after this huge amount of money is paid to RHC holding, is whether Dhillon, his family, and close associates got the money by fraudulent means, as has been alleged by Malvinder Singh. 

What we do know at this point is that the RSSB guru and his family have failed to repay money that they obtained through dubious "loans" (more like money siphoning) from the coffers of RHC Holding. So this demolishes the guru's undeserved reputation of being a Perfect Living Master, since his behavior doesn't even rise to the level of an average moral human who pays their bills on time.

Sunil Godhwani, by the way, used to be the guru's right-hand-man and managed financial affairs at the headquarters of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. Here's a description of his role from a Bloomberg story posted on the RSSB web site:

• Sunil Godhwani: The money man. Said to have been friends with the Dhillon family since childhood and to have grown up in the dera itself, Godhwani was managing the finances of the dera.

Godhwani has been charged with cheating and criminal conspiracy. Godhwai became head of Religare Enterprises at the behest of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, after which Godhwani is alleged to have funneled money into the pockets of the guru and his family.  

Comments

[Di]

Um, good point and greatly appreciated.
I was mostly referring to administration/over jealous sevadars who are eager to please the master by physical seva. I didn't mean to imply that satsangis don't meditate.
Thank you for the correction.

[Di]

I also want to apologize to anyone who may feel hurt by any of my comments here. Like others, I am trying to make sense of what has been happening to santmat under current leadership and am asking some honest questions. That is all.
Lastly, IMO big brothers are always looking but not always for our best interests. We should question authority when things don't make sense and hold the administration to the mission of the organization or values of the society.

[The Boss]

"I wonder if all the higher ups in dera actually meditate. In my circle, I can tell if someone is meditating or not based on their nature and behaviors. Meditators tend to be......

Hazoor used to say "we have to be useful to other."

not engage in useless seva of doing the same meaningless thing over and over and over again because a higher up tells us "this is how babaji wants it."

Posted by: Di | October 12, 2019 at 02:18 PM

Not necessarily. I have had close associations with real heavy weights (meditators) with personalities poles apart - from the benevolent to master deceptors(about themselves) to the extremely Curt (bordering on appearing rude/unsocial, to the Gucci clad ruthless business men.

GSD says be good human beings. So a lot more than serving the needy.

NO SEVA is firstly useless. Second you insult the emotions of the person doing the Seva. Actually from a Guru's perspective that man who stands in the scorching sun supposedly to direct the swanky cars in Dera, especially in parts where a car comes by say every 3 minutes is zillion times more useful than someone like you or me who fritter away our time posting in here. Haven't you heard GSD say No Seva is big or small!! I don't recollect Charan ever using these words in public. Yes there is that anecdote about Charan's response to some with misplaced intellect when told they would happily donate machines which could do the land filling (faster and far more efficiently) instead of the mitti ki seva that the sangat lovingly did.

Any relevance seen to the context of our exchange?

Have a good day.