The Lilavati Hospital trust has called for punitive action against HDFC Bank CEO Sashidhar Jagdishan for financial fraud. The top executive has been accused of accepting a significant sum of money to harass the father of a trust member — with the Lilavati Kirtilal Mehta Medical Trust producing handwritten diary entries as evidence. An HDFC spokesperson however rubished the allegations and insisted that Jagdishan was being “targeted by unscrupulous people” who were “abusing the legal process to thwart the recovery of the long outstanding loan due to the Bank from recalcitrant defaulters”.
According to an NDTV report, LKMM has levelled charges against eight people including former officer bearers who allegedly embezzled funds. Members of the trust told a Mumbai court on Saturday that they were calling for the top executive to be suspended and prosecuted on the basis of a court order and FIR filed last week. The lengthy list of charges against the group include allegations of financial fraud, criminal conspiracy, abuse of fiduciary position, evidence tampering and obstruction of justice.
Jagdishan allegedly received received Rs 2.05 crore from a former member to harass the father of a current trustee. The petitioners allege that the transaction was recorded in a handwritten diary that was later recovered by the present members of LKMM.
“The allegations made by Lilavati Trust, its Trustees and Officials against the Bank’s MD and CEO are baseless and malicious. The outrageous and preposterous allegations are strongly and categorically denied. The Trustee, Prashant Mehta and his family members owe substantial amounts to HDFC Bank which were never repaid. Recovery and enforcement actions have been taken by the Bank over two decades and at every stage Prashant Mehta and his other family members have launched numerous vexatious legal actions. Having consistently failed at all levels including the Hon’ble Supreme Court, they have now resorted to the recent mala fide personal attacks on the Bank’s MD & CEO with the sole objective of intimidating and bullying the Bank and its MD & CEO from carrying out the mandate of recovering all outstanding loans in every possible manner permissible under law,” a spokesperson countered.
The fight between old and new members of the Lilavati Trust has been underway for several years. The Kishore Mehta family wrested control of the Trust in 2023 after a protracted legal battle with the Vijay Mehta family. According to their website, the trust was founded in 1978 by the late Kirtilal Mehta while Lilavati Hospital was built by his son Kishor Mehta. The family members of another son — Vijay Mehta — were gradually inducted into the Board over the years.
The development also came mere hours after the Economic Offences Wing of the Mumbai Police registered a criminal breach of trust and cheating case pertaining to the alleged misappropriation of Rs 11.52 crore from the Trust. The case was filed by permanent trustee Prashant Kishor Mehta — the third FIR registered in connection with the ongoing feud. According to a report by the Free Press Journal, the latest case accuses several people including Rashmi Mehta, Niket Mehta, Sushil Mehta, Bhavin Mehta, Chetan Mehta, and Suresh Motwani of colluding to siphon funds between August 2001 and June 2003. During this period the accused allegedly invested Rs 16.52 crore in Trust funds into Mayfair Realtors Pvt. Ltd. and Vesta India Ltd. A significant portion of this transaction was done with cash and went undetected in the official accounts.