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.

Junkyard NDTV

That NDTV’s journalism was and is dubious has long been known. I recall once, owing to my suspicions, I even timed their debates for time-share and it confirmed how journos like Barkha Dutt manipulate debates in favour of their bosses in Congress. At other times she would be campaigning against BJP and Narendra Modi and stoking Muslim emotions against the latter as she did in 2012. And their campaign of hatred still continues through which NDTV (and some other media houses too) are singularly focused on tarring ModiSarkar with every incident of any nature that happens in India. Every incident is turned into a national disaster or calamity. And foreign media houses pick up these rants and peddle it further as gospel:

That’s the general idea of what NDTV does. Had it been a Congress govt they would have gladly defended the party. Remember, Barkha Dutt called the Nirbhaya protesters “lumpens” and “drunks”. Add to all this the fact that NDTV is seen as a terrorist-sympathising channel and nothing proved it better than the certificate Hafiz Saeed issued to Barkha. There is no place to hide anymore. But what should be one of the greatest modern mysteries of media is how a channel that has been eternally making losses survives. It is sheer magic indeed. Each time NDTV hits rock bottom some saviour comes through miraculously for a rescue. Why would investors keep pouring money into a losing proposition is an amazing mystery. Let’s look at a bit of history to all this.

It started with the Sunday Guardian carrying two stories “NDTV juggles funds, shares abroad, avoids tax” and “NDTV-ICICI loan chicanery saved Roys”. This was in December 2010, immediately after Radiagate. Both articles are not available now on the Sunday Guardian website but you can read extracts from the articles here and also here. This storm too passed and NDTV, as usual, issued legal threats of civil and criminal defamation to the news magazine. More dirt started coming out. Sanjay Dutt of Quantum Securities sent a series of complaints to Ministry of Corporate Affairs, SEBI and the RBI. His allegations ranged from mal-governance in NDTV to financial skullduggery. Moneylife listed various allegations:

Sanjay Dutt is also a shareholder in NDTV and also a former consultant to the channel. NDTV considered his allegations to financial bodies “defamation” and got a court-restraint stopping him from further allegations. Those who blabber the loudest about “Crony capitalism” are great examples of it too, like NDTV. Sample these from Moneylife based on allegations by Sanjay Dutt:

•Mr Dutt  also argues that while public shareholders have made no money, the promoters and directors pay themselves lavishly. As recently as 12 July 2013, the company has sought central government permission under Sec 640B for enhanced remuneration to directors, even though there are no profits from operations nor taxes paid to the government for many years.

•Mr Dutt further says that NDTV’s executive management, a small group close to the promoters, which include editors, law firms, tax advisers and consultants have enjoyed first class business travel, hefty remuneration, ex-gratia bonuses etc adding up to a massive Rs320 crore over four years (plus ESOPS), even as the company has made losses, failed to pay dividends and not paid taxes.

None of the financial bodies and regulators mentioned above ever responded to letters from Sanjay Dutt that contained the allegations. Such is the clout wielded by NDTV at that time under a friendly FM called P. Chidambaram. And each time NDTV sank a bit more, there was always a Knight in Shining Armour coming to its rescue:

“…how marquee institutional investors always line up to acquire this loss-making company’s bits and pieces and exit at a loss at regular intervals, only to make way for other big name investors! The latest was DE Shaw which provided an exit to Goldman Sachs in 2011 by acquiring a 14.2% stake. After this, NDTV acquired a significant investor—Abhay Oswal, who owns nearly 15% of its equity but seems to have no presence on NDTV’s board of directors. Mr Oswal happens to be the father-in-law of Navin Jindal, an industrialist and Congress Member of Parliament”.

Sanjay Dutt became a whistle-blower and exposed to the IT Department on the biggest scams by NDTV to dodge taxes. Rakesh Jhunjunwala, considered a wizard of the stock market, carries this (supposedly a fan site):

“Now, the latest twist is that the income-tax sleuths have got wind of an alleged scam perpetrated by NDTV. Apparently, some subsidiary of NDTV allotted shares to two foreign companies and received an exorbitant amount of Rs. 624 crore. The shares were allotted for an eye-popping consideration of Rs. 7,015 each. The astonishing part is that the subsidiary which allotted the shares has no business operations and there is nothing to show that it has any value let alone the value of Rs. 7,015 per share. What is even more surprising that the shares were sold in the very next year for a price of Rs. 634 per share and a whopping loss of Rs. 584 crore was claimed”.

When asked about the allotment of shares to foreigners Prannoy Roy and Vikram Chandra nonchalantly told the IT that they were “Selling Dreams”. That’s what NDTV has been doing for a very long time, selling dreams, bogus stories, fake news, vicious campaigns, pro-terrorists slant and sometimes anti-Hindu and even anti-India stuff. They seem to have got a lot of money for selling these wet dreams it appears. For this fraudulent transaction the IT has slapped a demand of 525 crores along with penalties adding up to 825 crores. Jhunjhunwala’s comments are in the image that I tweeted on August 6:

That’s not even the whole story. Sometime back an IT officer was reportedly harassed through false allegations because he alleged money laundering by NDTV. This officer, SK Srivastava, was harassed, suspended, legal cases slapped against him and even allegations of sexual harassment. He had exposed money laundering by NDTV and involvement of P. Chidambaram in the episode. Ram Jethmalani had directly accused PC of receiving bribes which were laundered by NDTV. Madhu Kishwar had narrated the whole harrowing saga on her site Manushi. I believe she too got a legal notice for defamation for writing the story.

The IT Dept. issued its notice for 525 crores in June and demanded a reply by June 22. PGurus site notes that Prannoy Roy is away in South Africa and NDTV has requested more time to reply to the notice. This is in addition to: “NDTV is already facing a FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act) notice of Rs.2030 crores and the matter is before the Adjudication forum of Enforcement Directorate. In Aircel-Maxis case, the Enforcement Directorate in its charge sheet details that NDTV also received around Rs.250 crores from Astro All Asia Networks, a subsidiary of Maxis during the scam period. The 2G Court had already issued a Letter of Rogatory to Britain in this regard”.

Jhunjunwala notes in his article that NDTV stock has sunk so badly that he refers to it as “Junkyard stock”. That NDTV has consistently committed financial misdeeds is not in doubt anymore. It never was. Under the previous Congress govt all these misdeeds could be covered up and wiped off. There is a new govt at the Centre now. PM Modi has promised to punish the corrupt and be a “Chowkidaar” against thieves looting the nation. It is now up to ModiSarkar to ensure Junkyard NDTV pays for its sins and winds up. NDTV is useless to the nation and offer no value to anyone. With 3% viewership of the English audience it’s no value to even advertisers who advertise under pressure. The only thing NDTV does is create communal and caste divides, damage India’s name abroad, indulge in fake campaigns with a political agenda and most of all its Pro-Pak, Pro-terrorist agenda. India can do without their nonsense.