Goenka left their corporate jobs with the Birla Group to set up Kemco Chemicals, a cosmetic manufacturing unit in Kolkata, in 1974.

[10] In July 2013, WOW a Chennai-based NGO launched a campaign against Emami asking them to remove the Fair and Handsome advertisement starring Khan, saying that it is discriminating against people on the basis of skin color.

[20] In the early morning of 9 December 2011, an AMRI Hospital in south Kolkata's Dhakuria district erupted in fire, leading to the deaths of 92 people – mostly critically ill patients, many of them suffocating in their sleep.

[21] The following day, the license for the hospital was canceled, and the Chief Minister of West Bengal ordered a judicial inquiry into the incident.

[23] Seven members of the hospital's board were arrested the same day, and were remanded to police custody until 20 December by the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Alipore.

[22] Among the seven arrested were Agarwal and Goenka, founders of Emami and directors of the hospital chain, who were charged with negligently causing the deaths.

[22] Ultimately a total of 16 people stood accused in the courts in July 2016, including the board members and several directors of the hospital.

[21] Amongst the charges were culpable homicide not amounting to murder under section 304 of the Indian Penal Code, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years' imprisonment in cases where the criminal actions are undertaken knowingly but without the intention to cause death.