NDTV promoters, ex-CEO routed black money: CBI

The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a criminal case against NDTV news channel, its promoters Prannoy and Radhika Roy, besides its former chief executive officer Vikramaditya Chandra and some public servants for allegedly violating Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) rules between 2004 and 2010. The channel and its promoters have been booked on the charges of cheating, corruption and criminal conspiracy. On Wednesday, the CBI conducted searches at Chandra's residence.

NDTV has denied the CBI's allegations, saying they are a front for a wide clampdown on freedom of the press.

Investments made by NCBU, a General Electric company at the time, in Network PLC (NNPLC), an NDTV company incorporated in London on November 30, 2006 have come under CBI's scanner. The FIR says NNPLC allegedly got approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) board in violation of FDI rules in 2009. NNPLC received total FDI worth $163.43 million and invested it in various NDTV subsidiaries through a "web" of complex transactions.

It is alleged that during May 2004 to May 2010, NDTV floated around 32 subsidiary firms across the globe, mostly in tax havens such as Holland, the United Kingdom, Dubai, Malaysia and Mauritius. Most of these companies allegedly had no business transactions and were created and maintained solely to funnel in tainted funds from abroad.

These funds, allegedly the bribes accrued by unidentified public servants, were invested through NDTV and laundered back to India through multiple layers of complex transactions and shell companies. "NDTV Ltd, through its promoters viz Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy, (late) KVL Narayan Rao, Vikramaditya Chandra had entered into a criminal conspiracy with unknown public servants with the object of bringing (their) tainted money through a web of complex transactions through the FDI route."

NDTV released a statement in response to the charges, saying: "Despite a series of cases in which the investigation is deliberately stalled, agencies have found no evidence of any corruption by NDTV. 

Prannoy and Radhika Roy, the founders of NDTV, as also the company, have cooperated in all matters filed against them. As part of the continued persecution of free press, a new CBI case has been filed about a $150 million investment in NDTV's non-news business by NBCU. The case makes the ludicrous charge that the transaction, declared to all relevant authorities in the US and India, laundered money for unknown public servants. NDTV and its founders have full faith in India's judiciary at this crucial time and remain committed to the integrity of the company's journalism. Attempts to silence free and fair reportage through malicious and fabricated charges will not succeed. This is not about a company or individuals but about a larger battle to maintain the freedom of the press, something which India has always been renowned for."