BR Shetty, who founded the hospital operator NMC Healthcare and UAE Exchange, has filed a $15 billion claim against Bank of Baroda and 25 other defendants in the Bombay High Court. He alleges that the Indian lender helped enable fraud across his businesses and then chased him for repayment under guarantees he says he never signed.
According to Reuters, which reviewed the filing, the defendants include 10 of the bank’s officials, former NMC executives Prasanth Manghat and Promoth Manghat, their associates and two Indian companies. Shetty says Bank of Baroda was NMC’s main banker until about 2019 and that it allowed money to be diverted through group companies and firms presented as independent suppliers. The suit accuses bank staff of enabling round-tripping, where funds pass through several entities before returning to their source. It also claims the bank’s systems raised more than 100 money-laundering alerts that were later closed, that credit kept flowing without adequate security, and that some disputed proceeds ended up in Avitis Super Speciality Hospitals and SMARD Building Solutions.
The claim is split into three equal parts: $5 billion in direct damages, $5 billion for lost business and investment opportunities, and $5 billion for harm to his reputation. Shetty wants interest at 18 per cent a year from the date the suit was filed. He has also asked the court to order the release of transaction instructions, account-opening papers and customer-verification records, to preserve electronic evidence, and to restrict some defendants from dealing with assets in India. Nothing reported so far shows that the court has granted any of these requests.
Bank of Baroda said on Wednesday that it had not been served and could not comment on untested pleadings. “If and when the Bank is served, the Bank will defend the suit firmly,” it said. The lender is trying to recover about Rs28 billion from Shetty and has won several decrees against him in India and the UAE. It points to a 2021 Karnataka High Court order barring him from disposing of his assets, his later insolvency claim before the National Company Law Tribunal, and a similar New York case that was dismissed in July 2024.
NMC, once the largest private healthcare provider in the Gulf, went into administration in 2020 after disclosing debts of $6.6 billion, far above earlier estimates of $2.1 billion. On July 1, 2026, Bank of Baroda agreed to pay $600 million to settle claims brought by NMC group companies and their joint administrators, without admitting liability. Shetty says he was not a party to that deal and that his own claims survive it. The bank says the new suit creates no immediate liability unless a court rules against it or it has to set money aside.
