NDTV founders Prannoy Roy and his wife, Radhika Roy, were prevented from leaving the country on Friday, the channel claims. In a statement published on its website, the channel has called it a ‘subversion of media freedom’.
The brief statement reads, “They have been stopped from travelling abroad on the basis of a fake and wholly unsubstantiated corruption case initiated by the CBI that was filed two years ago and in which Radhika and Prannoy Roy have been fully cooperating. Today’s action is, along with events like raids on media owners, a warning to the media to fall in line – or else.”
Recently, The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) had upheld two orders of SEBI imposing a penalty of ₹2 crore on NDTV and ₹20 lakh on the company and its directors Prannoy Roy, Radhika Roy and Vikramaditya Chandra. NDTV had filed an appeal with the SAT against the SEBI order in 2018.
In 2015, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had imposed a fine of ₹2 crore on New Delhi Television for late disclosure of the fact that the company had received a tax demand of ₹450 crore from the income tax department. In 2018, SEBI had imposed an additional penalty of ₹10 on NDTV, ₹3 lakhs each of the 3 directors, and ₹3 lakh on the compliance officer Anoop Singh Juneja. Juneja was fined ₹2 lakh for violation of listing norms, and ₹1 lakh for violation disclosure practices.
