‘No criminality found,’ says CBI report clearing NDTV’s Prannoy, Radhika Roy in ICICI Bank loan case
A closure report by the agency said that a loan that was alleged to have violated banking regulations was found to be a normal business transaction.
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The Central Bureau of Investigation, while closing its corruption and fraud case against NDTV founders Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy in October, said that there was no criminal wrongdoing in a Rs 375-crore loan extended by ICICI Bank to their company RRPR Holdings Private Limited, reported The Wire on Wednesday.
A Delhi court took note of the agency’s closure report in an order dated November 12.
The closure report, accessed by The Wire, said that the loan, alleged in 2017 to have violated banking regulations, was in fact a normal business transaction.
The Central Bureau of Investigation said that the loan taken by NDTV was not an “isolated case” and that ICICI Bank had been “extending such loan facilities to other similarly rated companies”.
The central agency investigated allegations against the Roys pertaining to criminal conspiracy, collusion with ICICI Bank officials and failure to disclose the pledge of shares to regulators. However, the closure report concluded that no laws were violated and no criminality was established.
In 2009, the Roys had taken a loan from Vishvapradhan Commercial Private Limited, a company then linked to Reliance Industries that was subsequently acquired by the Adani Group in 2022. This acquisition paved the way for the conglomerate’s takeover of NDTV.
The central agency had alleged that the Vishvapradhan Commercial Private Limited...
