New Delhi, Aug. 21 (IANS): The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case against senior journalist and co-founder of listed broadcaster New Delhi Television (NDTV) Prannoy Roy, his wife Radhika Roy and the compamy's CEO and Director Vikramaditya Chandra for bringing tainted money of unidentified public servants through a web of complex transactions via the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) route.
The probe agency in its FIR registered on Monday mentioned that NDTV Ltd through its promoters Prannoy Roy, Radhika Roy, K.V.L. Naryanan Rao (since expired) and Vikramaditya Chandra had entered into a criminal conspiracy with unidentified public servants for the purpose.
The CBI FIR said that NDTV got incorporated on September 8, 1988 and Prannoy Roy, Radhika Roy and Naryanan K.V.L. Rao (a retired IRS officer) were the whole-time directors while Vikramaditya Chandra was the CEO-cum-whole-time Director of the company.
"During the period from May 2OO4 to 2010, NDTV Ltd floated around 32 subsidiary firms all over the world, mostly in tax havens like Holland, UK, Dubai, Malaysia, Mauritius... Majority of these companies had no business transaction and they were meant only for financial transactions to bring funds from abroad," the FIR said. It has been alleged that these transactions were sham transactions and the aforementioned funds were invested by unidentified public servants through NDTV Ltd and later laundered back to India through multiple layers of complex transactions and shell companies, the FIR said.
"The proceeds of corruption of unknown public servants were invested through NDTV Ltd," the FIR said.
The CBI had registered a preliminary enquiry into the case in 2016 against unidentified income tax officials, Prannoy Roy, Radhika Roy, Narayan K.V.L. Rao and Chandra.
The FIR said that NDTV Ltd had incorporated Network PLC (NNPLC) in London on November 30, 2006.
