NDTV Frauds V Freedom

What if we could all look at the IT returns for FY 2003-04 for some of our media folks? Folks like Prannoy Roy, Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai, Tarun Tejpal, Shekhar Gupta and some others. And then look at their IT returns for the FY 2013-14. These characters weren’t poor in 2003-04 but once the Congress came to power in 2004, the dramatic growth in their wealth is not hard to estimate. Roy has properties in Delhi, Goa and maybe South Africa too. Roy is probably also richer by a long mile in other assets. What about Rajdeep? New channels floated up. He reportedly has a bungalow worth 52 crores with a swimming pool. The sinking Tehelka found life again. Tejpal too built up properties in many places. Shekhar Gupta? Well he is reported to have built up assets worth 36 crores during the 10 years of UPA. Other than that, Shekhar also has multiple properties and farm houses. Political pimping pays, especially if you’re a Congress stooge which gives you the liberty to scam as much as you want.

Many of these hotshot media stars were a law unto themselves. Barkha could indulge in brokering Cabinet berths in Radiagate and be protected. Shekhar could write nonsense like the coup story and tar the Army. And, of course, NDTV had the license to abuse Modi almost every single day, peddle the Paki agenda and leak critical information during terror attacks. Tejpal had the license to… well, he had a license for a lot of things. I have no doubts that if the finances and assets of many hotshot journos are scrutinised there will be interesting revelations. But being the press, most govts usually overlook many offences and infringements. But NDTV has a string of frauds through its owners that was bound to burst their bubble sooner or later. The CBI raided the residences of Prannoy Roy and some other shareholders and that was enough to set the cat among the rats. The reason for the raid was over a complaint on PR’s company RRPR (after the couple) having defrauded ICICI Bank. Here’s the summary of it from Indian Express:

As soon as the raid happened, the loony Commie bunch of the NDTV variety started screaming “ATTACK ON PRESS FREEDOM, ATTACK ON PRESS FREEDOM”. Like goats, a part of this media always moves in a herd. Most of them are dunces as far as banking, finance or financial frauds are concerned. Most of them don’t even understand the issue. All they screamed was NDTV owes a measly sum of 48 crores but Adani owes banks 72000 crores. And these laughable clowns are defenders of our freedoms? So first, let’s educate these idiots the difference between a loan default and a loan fraud.

Loans are taken with the intent of returning the amounts. Sometimes the businesses don’t produce the estimated results or go into losses for multiple reasons. And then there is non-payment of loan instalments or default. All these media clowns point to Adani and 72000 crores as if that is a loan-fraud and they claim Adani is close to Modi and so is being spared while PRoy runs an “independent news channel” which is strongly critical of Modi and so is being targeted. Only an uneducated moron would make such an argument (It’s like taught by Congress which claimed that MLA Shakuntala Khatik who urged to set a police station on fire is being targeted because she’s a Dalit). And like I keep saying, most journos are not very bright people and there is no dearth of financial-dunces in this political-pimp media. Let’s look at some of the defaulters from 2014 and 2015:

I have listed only a few as samples. The 2014 list is from Rediff and the 2015 one from MoneyControl. I have marked Deccan and Kingfisher in red because they involve loan and banking frauds. Others maybe loan defaults but no fraud is indicated. Loan defaults either get restructured, some assets are taken over but making a genuine loss and being unable to repay loans is not a crime. Banks can attach mortgages or if the company is liquidated then banks too have to bear the loss. But a fraud is different. Deccan Chronicle is a fraud because the owners took loans from the bank with fraudulent statements, with bogus assets and valuations that did not exist. Their chairman and director were arrested in the case.

In case of Kingfisher (current amount 9000 crores) the fraud is that Vijay Mallya in the last stages siphoned hundreds of crores to over 40 trusts and firms of his family. Effectively, this is siphoning off money from the company for which the loan wasn’t given. That is a fraud. If Kingfisher had suffered losses and couldn’t pay back loans then Mallya’s liability would be limited only to his unpaid shareholding, personal properties mortgaged and nothing more. But the media morons who scream “ATTACK ON PRESS FREEDOM” don’t understand any of this and argue if the claim against PR was only 48 crores there are bigger defaulters. PR is not being raided for defaulting on loans. He is being raided for loan fraud. And it is the NDTV promoter that is being raided and the channel or no media house has been shut down. This is as stupid as saying a raid on SoniaG would amount to raid on Congress. But PR’s financial scams have a long history and it was a never-ending soap opera. Here are snippets from an article in the NewIndianExpress which reads like a crime dossier:

“When the UPA assumed office in 2004, NDTV had a huge cash loss of Rs 248 crore. It had no funds even to pay salaries… Between 2006 and 2010, NDTV India floated some 20 wholly-owned subsidiaries in different parts of the world - seven in Mauritius, eight in India, two in the Netherlands, one in London, one in UAE, and one in Sweden. All of them were letter-box companies… Throughout the UPA regime, NDTV refused to disclose the identity of the investors in its shell subsidiary companies. It would not even attach the foreign subsidiary’s balance sheet as required by law. It took the permission of the Company Law Department of the UPA government not to attach the balance sheet. By this process it kept out of its balance sheet the entire investment of $310 million in its London shell subsidiary which shared an office with some 3000 companies with a common address… a Mukesh Ambani company gave a virtually interest-free loan to another company for acquiring 26 per cent of NDTV shares for Rs 403 cr. The zero-interest bond is then transferred to another company belonging to Himachal Furturistic Group for Rs 50 crore — with the Ambani company incurring a loss of Rs 353 crore and claiming it as tax expense. Why should Ambani incur this loss for NDTV? Is it to fund the freedom that NDTV is talking about now or to buy it?... Srivastava also unearthed evidence pointing to huge tax frauds by NDTV. He moved to make a fresh assessment on NDTV, which led to the discovery of tax fraud of Rs 300 crore for six years”

The way I see it, NDTV financing was as good as a Ponzi scheme. They would make more and more losses. Then they would get someone to fund them to pay off the debts. Then they would again make deep losses. Again they would get someone to fund them to pay off the debts. This has been going on for nearly a decade. What kind of business has this kind of luxury unless there is political pimping and crime involved? And given their political leanings, often anti-India stances, pro-Kashmiri terrorists stances, there is good enough reason to suspect funding by enemies of India. And at the drop of a hat they threatened anyone who exposed their financial nonsense with defamation cases. All this apart, there is a tax demand of 525 crores which the Delhi HC has upheld. There’s another case of FEMA violation with the ED citing 2030 crores. This is not FEMA anymore but PMLA (Prevention of money laundering Act) which the RBI has refused to classify as FEMA which involves only a penalty. PMLA offences are punishable with prison sentences. So, all this drama about “ATTACK ON PRESS FREEDOM” is hollow nonsense. Are people crazy to have an agenda to even write a whole book called “NDTV Frauds”? It has never happened in media history before.

After the raids PR and media goons like him held a grand meeting at the Press Club in Delhi to condemn ModiSarkar. They claimed attack on media, they claimed this is undeclared Emergency and Congi pimps like Rajdeep, Shekhar, HK Dua and all played victims. Not one charlatan from this lot mentioned that all these investigations started under the last years of UPA and not under ModiSarkar. The current govt is merely doing what it has promised to do – act against and prosecute the corrupt. If PR is innocent and has committed no crime, all he had to do was put out a press note (Oh wait… he has a TV channel too) to clarify the issues. There was no need for this Dharna type childish behaviour almost claiming “we are all under attack”. Nobody is under any attack.

The fact that the browbeating media crooks gathered and whined only proves his guilt rather than his innocence. This has nothing to do with press freedom or any freedom. No media house has been hounded or shut down. This is a govt that couldn’t even enforce a legitimate one day ban on NDTV. And after all his crimes PR grandly states. "If you crawl, they will come for you, so stand up”. Laughable clown! What PR means is that the media should have limitless freedom to commit financial frauds and that too unlimited frauds. They crawl for everything. They crawl for Padma awards, they call for RS seats, they crawl for discounted bungalows through political influence of builders, they crawl for free junkets, they crawl for every privilege that the Lutyens mafia can offer them. And for his fake self-righteous lecture, PR himself has crawled with Modi too, to have his sins washed:

This Lutyens mafia which wants us to believe that a downright fraud-accused is an angel and press freedom is under attack never stood up for journalists killed in Bihar or UP. This mafia washed the sins of all the scams of SoniaG and UPA. This mafia refused to discuss Radiagate and other political crimes of media. Rajdeep who talked about “silence” at the press club was silenced by one phone call from Prithviraj Chavan to bury the Cash4Votes tapes. Most of these guys are political pimps of the Congress who hate BJP, who hate Modi, who hate Hindus and some of them hate India itself. All this talk of press freedom or independence is bogus whining. People at large did not show any sympathy and actually want most of these guys prosecuted for their crimes. I am naturally reminded of the lines from the last scenes from the true mafia story “Goodfellas”:

“Anything I wanted was a phone call away. Free cars and the keys to a dozen hideouts flats all over the city. I'd bet twenty, thirty Grand over a weekend... and then I'd either blow the winnings in a week or go to the sharks to pay back the bookies. It didn't matter. When I was broke, I just went out and robbed some more. We ran everything. … And now it's all over”.

There’s a lot more that can be written about NDTV frauds that actually initiated the decline of credibility of MSM. These are the very people who turned journalism in to a political-pimp business and now claim to be its watchdog. Imagine, a postman accused of stealing Rs.57 was suspended and was acquitted after 29 years. He lost his entire life over a charge of stealing Rs.57 and these crooks of media think swindling in crores is a small thing. The Indian MSM continues to remain the first line of defence for the corrupt.