NDTV founders Prannoy, Radhika Roy stopped from going abroad
New Delhi: NDTV founders Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy were on Friday night detained by airport authorities at the Mumbai airport and prevented from leaving the country based on a request by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Sources here said the CBI had issued a Look Out Circular (LOC) against the couple recently in connection with a corruption case it is probing against the news channel, its founders, and a promoter company called RRPR Holding Pvt Ltd. Shortly after authorities prevented the Roys from leaving the country, the news channel released a statement calling it a "complete subversion of basic rights" and a "shameful continuance of the campaign to warn the media that nothing less than complete obeisance is acceptable".
The statement also said that the case pertained to a loan RRPR had taken from ICICI and had repaid with interest ahead of schedule. "Both journalists had return tickets to come back to India on the 15th, just a week later," the statement read. The CBI's case is based on a complaint from Quantum Security Pvt Ltd, a company holding shares in NDTV and ICICI Bank.
According to the FIR, the couple allegedly conspired with the management of ICICI Bank to "launder benami funds of Rs 403.85 crore with mala fide objective to creating interest in favour of a benami party to gain control of a public listed news media company".
The CBI has alleged that the funds were diverted through a maze of shell companies to make an investment in RRPR Holding Pvt Ltd. However, NDTV had challenged the CBI's FIR in the Delhi High Court, where the matter is pending for the last two years. Moreover, NDTV said that it is "ludicrous to suggest they (Prannoy and Radhika) are a flight risk" because they have been regularly travelling in and out of the country since the case was registered.
Adding that both founders of NDTV have been fully cooperating with the probe, the channel said, "The authorities did not inform the court,
where the matter is sub judice, or the Roys, about today's action. It is, along with events like raids on media owners, a warning to the media to fall in line - or else."
