Story about Gurinder Singh Dhillon and RSSB casts light on legal problems

Check out an excellent lengthy story about a guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) organization that he leads, and the financial scandal the Dhillon family and his close associates are connected to.
Download Gurinder Singh Dhillon — the music & film-loving Radha Soami head at heart of Fortis crisis

The reporter who wrote ThePrint story, Nandita Singh, emailed me with questions, which I responded to in writing. Unfortunately, I didn't proofread my reply closely enough and left out a word, "no," in the quote included in the final paragraph of the story, where I meant to say "no wrong."

Here's some excerpts from the story to whet your appetite to read the whole thing, which presents a balanced view of Gurinder Singh Dhillon and Radha Soami Satsang Beas. I've added "no" in brackets in the final paragraph.

Interestingly, the reporter had her phone taken away after she snapped a photo at a RSSB center, just as happened to someone else in the United Kingdom who recorded some audio at a RSSB gathering. If RSSB doesn't want to be looked upon as a cult, its members should stop acting so fanatical.

...But outside the cocoon of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) ashram in Bhati, Chhatarpur, the spiritual organisation’s moral messaging is becoming increasingly hard to believe.

The century-old spiritual organisation’s head, 64-year-old Gurinder Singh Dhillon, is at the centre of one of India’s most high-profile business fiascos this year.

In October, former billionaire brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, now on the verge of bankruptcy, were arrested by the Delhi Police economic offences wing (EOW) for allegedly causing a loss of Rs 2,397 crore to Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL), a subsidiary of Religare Enterprises.

Eight months prior to that, Malvinder, the embattled business tycoon and former Ranbaxy, Religare and Fortis promoter, had filed a criminal complaint against his younger brother Shivinder, claiming that he conspired with a number of close associates to siphon off Rs 2,700 crore from their family’s holding company (RHC Holdings).

The money, Malvinder alleged, was transferred into the bank accounts of “Guruji” Dhillon and his associates in the form of loans made through a complicated network of smaller corporations, and used, in part, to expand the sect’s real-estate empire.

This allegedly included the purchase of 2,60,000 sq ft of prime real estate in Delhi (near Select Citywalk Mall), 80,000 sq ft of property in Ahmedabad, 500,000 sq ft in Noida, three farmhouses in Asola, and 8,71,200 sq ft in Gurgaon, Live Mint reported.

The tale only gets murkier, with Malvinder alleging that Shivinder had an ambition to one day head the powerful RSSB. Both brothers were Friday held in contempt by the Supreme Court, in another case involving the sale of Ranbaxy to Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo.

...How is a spiritual guru related to all this? Dhillon is cousin to the Singhs’ mother, and assumed a father-like role for the boys after their own passed away in the late 1990s.

The well-connected Babaji succeeded the Singh brothers’ maternal grandfather (his uncle) to become the guru of the popular sect in 1990. He was informed about the succession after a long flight, a close associate says, while he was dressed in jeans.

After the allegations surfaced, Dhillon denied owing any money to RHC Holdings, even after the Delhi High Court ordered him and 54 other associates, including his family, to cough up Rs 6,000 crore as repayment.

But now, while maintaining his debt-free innocence, Dhillon has finally owned up to financial transactions between him and the Ranbaxy brothers.

In a 12 November affidavit, the RSSB chief finally said the Singh brothers had approached him in 2010 to buy more rights in REL. To do this, Dhillon says, the brothers spent a reported Rs 440 crore through RHC on his behalf, adding that he “would not be made liable to repay any amount or interest”.

...This isn’t the first time the RSSB has come under public scrutiny for suspected illegal activity. For years, the rapid expansion of its real-estate empire has been at the centre of land-grabbing allegations, with the Delhi Forest Department officially filing an affidavit before the National Green Tribunal in 2014.

In the 350-page affidavit, the RSSB is described as an “illegal occupant” squatting on 174.98 acres of forest land in Asola Mines, Chhatarpur — where the Bhati ashram is. Further, the Delhi Forest Department believes that the dera, along with spiritual slums that sprung up next to it, are damaging the ecology of the Delhi ridge, the lungs of a city throttled by pollution.

The RSSB denies all allegations, stating that the land was bought by them, and they were willing to furnish the paperwork when asked.

...As the success stories of Fortis Healthcare Ltd and Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL) unravel, what appears to be at the faultline of the Singhs’ fall from grace is this very interconnected network of influential kin that initially helped them, and the RSSB, grow.

“I’m strongly inclined to believe the reports in the Indian financial press that Malivinder and Shivinder trusted Gurinder (Dhillon) as a father figure and spiritual adviser. But also, a business adviser,” says Brian Hines, an American who was a member of the sect’s US community for 35 years.

“Babaji’s influence over the affairs of Religare was ubiquitous — he pulled most of the strings,” the family associate adds.

“The relationship between Malvinder, Shivinder, Sunny (Sunil Godhwani) and Babaji wasn’t a secret at all, they would constantly be together and very visibly so. In fact, everyone would say ‘Religare is Babaji’s’, says the associate.

...Even in Hine’s experience at the commune, the “RSSB is a highly top-down organisation”. “The guru makes decisions and lower-level people implement them under his close supervision,” he says.

The sewadars describe Babaji as being “someone who talks in a way that everyone can relate to… but whom you can’t access easily”, a believer in Delhi who did not want to be named says.

...“As in all religions, the true believers are fanatical,” adds Hines. “I know, because I get so many comments on my blog posts telling me I must stop writing about Gurinder because he is God and can do [no] wrong. I ignore them, of course. I’m sure journalists get the same sort of angry insults.”

Comments

[Vinny]

In the world of nothingness, there is gurudom, gullible people, evasive tactics and ample money. That money is again nothingness hence no liability and no karma.

[j]

The exact details of how corporate shares made their way from the Singh Brothers to the Dhillon family, seems to be an incredibly complex financial matter that may involve changing valuations of shares, taxation issues, and god knows what. But as far as I can tell it still all boils down to this:

1. The Singh Brothers gave the Dhillon family a huge sum of money from these corporate coffers, though this may have provided a tax break for the brothers, the Dhillon family seems to have provided nothing in return for this gigantic influx of money.

2. Even though the money was to the Dhillons more an outright gift than anything else, Gurinder Singh is saying that this gift is the rightful property of the Dhillon family, and the gift-givers can go hang.

[Pakandi Baba]

Great journalism and transparency of a secret organisation. I saw an old article from last year, thought I’d share as it’s first time I’d see it

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-43522574

A sevadar died at Haynes Park and they tried to cover their negligence up.

So many shady people who have committed fraudulent deals are part of this organisation and protect Baba and make him look legit fooling thousands of genuine hardworking people. This is how it seems.

[SOM DUTT]

You can wage a war against such type people who involve in financial and other kind scandal .
I respect these sort of journalist who devote his life for public purpose and endvour to carry truth on surface

[OshoRobbins]

@j
The Singh brothers did have a benefit. A 50% share in the business / property which they helped the Dhillons create.
That is worth a lot as it is ongoing income.
Spence says it was a rights issue not a stock market initial offering, which is probably true as I have not looked into it. But I seem to remember something about the ipo initial stock market placing from 2006. Not sure if that is true or I have misunderstood some article I may have read.

[Satish kumar]

Court is watching the matter. Everything will be transparent after some time. Till then we have to wait and watch. Might can happen dhillon is saying true. So it's not good to damage someone credibility due to person himself in jail.its our responsibility as a author not to write that we don't know.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Osho
Your comments could well apply to the original distribution / gift from the Ranbaxy sale years earlier. Gurinder's submission on November 12th only addresses the current movement of funds from Fortis / RHC . But similar dynamics appear to be, and may well have been at work in the sale of Ranbaxy stock by Malvinder / Shivinder et al to Gurinder et al years earlier m

Which means it's still up on the air as to the full extent of the fraud, who actually was the final recipient of the siphoned funds, and who is really liable for the money owed.

Gurinder's submission simply confirms that the money went through his house, his accounts all the time. But where did it actually end up?

In light of this, I don't believe any party involved was ignorant of the actual working scheme. Gurinder is a micro-manager and has been involved in finance and investment for decades. He would have spotted account detail discrepancies right away, or anyone on his finance team would have, even if Malvinder et al had attempted to conducted these actions surreptitiously. When you move money back and forth month after month year after year they owner of the account, especially if they are a stickler for details, sees it.

For such a control freak type A personality as Gurinder to claim literally hundreds of transactions through his own accounts went unnoticed and unquestioned actually is shooting himself in the foot.

Dungeness didn't like what I'd written, basically paraphrasing Gurinder's stated excuses, saying they had a barf factor.

Well the barf factor is pretty high.

[j]

"@j
The Singh brothers did have a benefit. A 50% share in the business / property which they helped the Dhillons create."

OK, but for that sake of digging deeper, I have two questions about that:

1. If I spend a million dollars to buy 50% of a business or real estate, I've just lost half my investment. The future returns and/or tax advantages would have to be enormous for me to make a profit greater than my million dollars.

2. Per the Singh-Dhillon family deal, do we know if the Singh Brothers actually received a 50% share of profits, or at least had a 50% legal claim on real estate and other assets that they "bought" when they gave money to the Dhillon family?

At issue is an extremely large sum of money. We know at least this much: forgive me for being trite, but the money didn't just evaporate, it had to have gone somewhere. We know that the Singh Brothers don't have the money, so that means it ended up elsewhere. If not with the Dhillons, then where? Interest payments?

[Spence Tepper]

Let me put this another way, Osho. Given the fact that Gurinder acknowledges that funds came and went through his accounts, like a laundry, rotating around like a clothes dryer, for years, it is beyond reasonable doubt that he knew all about it, the sources and the destinations, gave his knowing approval, and at key points, his directives.

[daljit]

I agree with Som Dutt
It takes guts to take a bold stand against powerful and influential babas of India
Hats off to Brian Hines.
Andh bhakts ( blind devotees) never see anything wrong in their gods in human forms
Baba business is thriving in India thanks to their millions of blind devotees Who have been blinded by a fake guaranteed ticket to heaven
Wake up guys the ticket is fake
There are no guarantees in life let alone a guaranteed entry to heaven

[Um]

@ Daljit
No one os forced to see any Baba in India. What would indians do without people to worship, be it actors, sporters, politicians or why not baba's.??

Love, respect etc are all personal gifts … they are never wasted … even if the persons loved and respected might not deserve it.

If somebody misuses that love and respect and if karma does exist, he certainly will have to pay an price for it.

India is not famous for its babas but for the capacity of the masses to love publicly

[Spence Tepper]

Alternate Universe Gurinder in a private chat with Sunny and the Singh boys. (Or the closing soliloquy of the upcoming Bollywood musical, "Turbulent Turbans", or the new Oliver Stone film 'Stonewall Street')

'Guys, guys stop for a moment. When I helped start the remake of what was renamed Religare nearly three decades ago it was to find safe and non - violent ways for people, including the RSSB fund, to invest their monies, their life savings, or the monies entrusted to us by donation without accidentally investing in something that causes harm to people. That was the whole point of starting Fortis. It was why you knuckleheads were gifted with the good fortune to inherit Ranbaxy, to help people. Remember the global aids initiative? Man, that went down in flames! You guys could screw up a rock fight. '

' The point was to put the money to work in ways that weren't going to contribute to the whole network of harm. And by the way, invest in our own nation's development. The whole real estate thing was to help India look and function more like Dera. We know how to do it right here. And this whole focus was only because I was handed the burden of responsibility for the RSSB funds. I couldn't neglect that, nor the running of the Dera. So of course it's grow and expand. It's just in my nature. But damn if this hasn't swallowed up most of my life. '

' Things didn't go like we'd originally planned. I never expected you to turn around and screw Ranbaxy RHC and Fortis, Mal, Shiv and Sunny. That wasn't why I gave you free access to move the money and make it all work. And by the way, Shiv, you did a terrible job of quality control at Ranbaxy and basic fiscal management at Fortis. You both need to spend the rest of your lives making Chapatis in the Langer. You can do it in this life or the next 4. And Sunny, you need to go to rehab, really. You were brought in to help manage RSSB funds. I trusted you, but you just went to the dark side from day one. I saw it happening. Yes our finances are fabulous. But now we have to pay the piper. '

'This is not what I wanted for my wife and sons.'

' I saw this happening, I tried to get things back on track. But I went along with it and joined in. We bought a lot of real estate in India, but we moved way too aggressively for the market. But each dollar we bought took money out of your mischievous hands. So that's one reason why I started directing you both to buy stuff right away with these monies you kept coming up with. How could I move money out of your hands into legitimate real estate? It was a nice thought but didn't work. I went along with a lot of this to minimize the damage of you children running with scissors. But you just went back to steal more. '

' But it does nothing for you, and only makes matters worse to take on your debts leaving you free to recover the hidden assets, continue stealing, and do more damage.'

'At the end of the day, while some things did improve, and Religare is still a pretty good haven if you want to protect your life savings investing in India without too much corruption, still, I have to look in the mirror and acknowledge that as the head guy, the Rupee stops here. '

—. Alternate Universe Gurinder. (AUG)

[Dungeness]

Given the fact that Gurinder acknowledges that funds came and went through his accounts, like a laundry, rotating around like a clothes dryer, for years, it is beyond reasonable doubt that he knew all about it, the sources and the destinations, gave his knowing approval, and at key points, his directives.

There you have it.... a barf-less,unimpeachable summary of what GSD
was doing all those years in that noisy laundromat. Lying, dissembling,
salting away millions in loot for family, taking time off to hatch a few
death threats, corrupting RSSB's holiest teachings, horrifying the pure
with off-color jokes.

It looks bad... very bad. Spence is staging an intervention. We'll gather
round the dais, pass the kickstarter "hat". Confess, BabaJi! There's still
time for repentence. No guru is lost for good. We're here to help you
shine again with our love and support.

[Um]

and Daljit …. would great Gandhi have succeeded without the masses following him, literally?
and would India have given birth to so much great music styles and musicians without the mases loving that music??

[Guru]

@daljit

1)Gurinder singh never gives guarantee about ticket to heaven. As per him, you will pay for every second of your life.

2) He never asked for a penny to donate for dera. Still dera is flourishing ? due to money of whom ?

3) He never called him god.

so fix your self.

[Anon]

J your question is
“At issue is an extremely large sum of money. We know at least this much: forgive me for being trite, but the money didn't just evaporate, it had to have gone somewhere”

According to the affidavit the 440cr used
To buy the shares were pledged to the lenders for the benefit to the Singh brothers and sold at the substantial loss. So it sounds like the name of the Dhillon boys were used for the investment but the shares were bought and sold by the Singh brothers.

Further you say
“We know that the Singh Brothers don't have the money, so that means it ended up elsewhere.”

I don’t think anyone can assume that just because Malvinder says so. I do believe they have the money somewhere.
Let’s see I’m confident that piece of information will come out too.

[Baba Land Grab Singh.]

@sevadar,s,slaves,cocky me,s,chamcha,s,and plates of the Guru.

Your Guru does not take any money from Radha Soami Satsang Beas.
He has given away millions to grandsons of his beloved Guru and his own Sons.
Where are these millions coming from???.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Dungeness
I liked what you wrote!

You said this near the end...
"It looks bad... very bad."

I don't actually think so. Rather than a master scheme this is looking more like kids screwing around with a lot of money and cutting corners because they don't really know what the hell they are doing.

So later we look back and say" look at this mess! Who told you to do this?! " And all of them look a little dumbfounded and say 'I don't know, we were just winging it... You know, trying to do something really nice.."

That's really what this looks like. Not bad. Just children..

[Spence Tepper]

Children running with scissors.

[Dungeness]

Given the fact that Gurinder acknowledges that funds came and went through his accounts, like a laundry, rotating around like a clothes dryer, for years, it is beyond reasonable doubt that he knew all about it, the sources and the destinations, gave his knowing approval, and at key points, his directives.

There you have it.... a barf-less,unimpeachable summary of what GSD
was doing all those years in that noisy laundromat. Lying, dissembling,
salting away millions in loot for family, taking time off to hatch a few
death threats, corrupting RSSB's holiest teachings, horrifying the pure
with off-color jokes.

It looks bad... very bad. Spence is staging an intervention. We'll gather
round the dais, pass the kickstarter "hat". Confess, BabaJi ! There's still
time for repentance. No guru is lost for good. We're here to help you
shine again with our love and support.

[Neon]

@Guru

The answer to 2) is what we're seeing right now!!! Exciting isn't it!! Most likely illegal money -.-

[OshoRobbins]

@j
If you have a huge gain in one tax year, the tax bill is enormous (more than 50% in most countries).
So if you give away some of it, you save that tax. So you have given away nothing. It cost you nothing, and if you have a 50% stake in what you have away, you are way ahead. And it’s all tax free as it’s offshore.
Example:
1. You give nothing away. Gain $2 billion. Tax 1 billion. Net gain $1 billion.
2. Give away $1 billion. So tax paid on $1 billion is $500,000. Net gain $500,000.
Plus a 50% share in the given away $1 billion which is not taxable as offshore.
So $500,000 tax free gain which will grow tax free.
Disadvantage: has to be on trust because if you write it in an agreement you will be implicated if things go wrong.
So if the person doesn’t pay you, you have no legal basis to fight it in court.

[NiNe Always]

@j
If you have a huge gain in one tax year, the tax bill is enormous (more than 50% in most countries).
So if you give away some of it, you save that tax. So you have given away nothing. It cost you nothing, and if you have a 50% stake in what you have away, you are way ahead. And it’s all tax free as it’s offshore.
Example:
1. You give nothing away. Gain $2 billion. Tax 1 billion. Net gain $1 billion.
2. Give away $1 billion. So tax paid on $1 billion is $500,000. Net gain $500,000.
Plus a 50% share in the given away $1 billion which is not taxable as offshore.
So $500,000 tax free gain which will grow tax free.
Disadvantage: has to be on trust because if you write it in an agreement you will be implicated if things go wrong.
So if the person doesn’t pay you, you have no legal basis to fight it in court.
Posted by: OshoRobbins | November 18, 2019 at 12:02 AM

Is this some general Gyan you sharing or stating what happened when Singh Bros got Dhillons to subscribe to the 'unsubscribed' portion of the 2010 rights issue?

[OshoRobbins]

Hi NiNe Always
above was reply to j who asked

for that sake of digging deeper, I have two questions about that:

1. If I spend a million dollars to buy 50% of a business or real estate, I've just lost half my investment. The future returns and/or tax advantages would have to be enormous for me to make a profit greater than my million dollars.

2. Per the Singh-Dhillon family deal, do we know if the Singh Brothers actually received a 50% share of profits, or at least had a 50% legal claim on real estate and other assets that they "bought" when they gave money to the Dhillon family?

[J]

Thanks for your replies but I'm still not convinced about some of the issues:

1. The tax on capital gains in India isn't 50% or more, but 10 - 20 % at the very most.

https://www.bankbazaar.com/tax/capital-gains-tax.html
https://cleartax.in/s/capital-gains-income

I assume this applies to the corporate shares of the corporations the Singh Brothers were heading.

2. What precisely does "buying 50% of a company" even mean in this instance? It could mean any number of things, from a yearly disbursement of profits back to the Singh bros, or no money at all. In this case, do we actually know the details of what a 50% buy-in arrangement means for the Singh Bros. and the Dhillon family?

3. I suspect you're right that this "buy in" was indeed done on trust. I also suspect that the people receiving the money kept it, and the people giving the money lost it, though I don't yet have firm proof that this is so.

[Dungeness]

That's really what this looks like. Not bad. Just children..

You are a true evangelist. Everything, even sarcasm, is swept
aside in the zeal for exposing the lies of children, and leading
the lost to the truth within.

I salute you (unsarcastically).

[Maharshi]

The last time I had to file my ITR, I had come across https://quicko.com/?utm_source=hinessight&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=backlinks through the Quora platform. Have to admit they were very helpful and really supportive as this was the first time I had to file my ITR.

[Renuka Agarwal]

Very useful article to us and also know more about CERSAI