The Lilavati Hospital Trust ‘demanded answers’ from HDFC Bank and CEO Sashidhar Jagdishan on Wednesday — flagging discrepancies in its transactions with LKMM. The remarks came days after the trust called for punitive action against the senior executive and accused him of involvement in financial fraud. The bank has denied the claims and insists that an “outrageous and preposterous” attack was launched to obstruct legitimate recovery efforts.
Despite repeated public claims and legal accusations, Sashidhar Jagdishan or HDFC Bank has never produced a single official loan ledger or agreement in court regarding its supposed transaction with LKMM Trust. Even more concerning, various documents from the bank reflect widely inconsistent loan amounts — for instance Rs 4.8 crore was cited initially…Rs 450 crore in another filing…and now Rs 65.22 crore which are just three examples of many of the company in question,” the hospital trust wrote on Wednesday.
The Lilavati Kirtilal Mehta Medical Trust has repeatedly insisted that it had no outstanding dues to the private bank. It alleged that there was a “deliberate pattern of confusion, contradiction, and concealment” in the case and posed several questions for HDFC Bank and Jagdishan. A statement from the Trust on Wednesday also sought the loan agreement and ledger produced by HDFC to show the borrowing and wondered how a leading bank could “issue completely different figures in different courts”.
“A Rs 4.9 crore loan. Or was it Rs 65.22 crore? Or Rs 450 crore? Yet, despite all the noise, not a single official
loan ledger has been presented in court of LKMM trust or Prashant Mehta. How can one of India’s largest banks make three different claims about a single loan, and not back it up with a basic loan agreement and ledger?” permanent trustee Prashant Mehta reiterated.
The LKMM permanent trustee has also served a Rs 1,000 crore defamation notice to Jagdishan and HDFC Bank over its “malicious and motivated attack”. The HDFC CEO and MD has also been accused of accepting a significant sum of money to harass the father of a trust member. The matter was reportedly brought before a Mumbai court on Saturday with the trust calling for his suspension and prosecution on the basis of a recent court order and FIR. The Lilavati Kirtilal Mehta Medical Trust had produced handwritten diary entries as evidence.