A Delhi court on Thursday accepted the closure report filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in a case against NDTV founders Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy over a loan advanced to them by ICICI Bank..Special Judge (PC Act) Shailender Malik of the Rouse Avenue Court said,"This Court accepts the closure report filed by CBI as no criminality or violation of Section 19(2) of Banking Regulation Act, 1949 has been found by any of the accused.".The CBI had registered a case against Roys, RRPR Holdings and NDTV in 2017 on a complaint made by Sanjay Dutt, a director of M/s Quantum Security Private Limited. The complainant had stated that Roys and RRPR Holdings had obtained a loan to acquire a 20 per cent stake in NDTV. It was alleged that in connection with that, Roys and RRPR Holding then entered into a criminal conspiracy with officials of ICICI Bank. "Under the conspiracy ICICI Bank advanced loan of Rs.375 crores and took over entire shareholding of above mentioned promoters of NDTV (nearly 61%), as collateral/pledged, in violation of Section 19(2) of Banking Regulation Act and under the said conspiracy ICICI accepted the repayment of loan by reducing the interest rate from 19% per annum to 9.5% per annum, resulting wrongful loss of Rs.48 crores to ICICI Bank and corresponding gain to above mentioned accused persons," the complaint alleged..NDTV has since been taken over by the Adani Group. In the closure report filed last year, CBI said that ICICI Bank had reduced rate of interest in respect of 83 loan accounts during FY 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10 and such reduction in the case of the Roys and NDTV was not an isolated case."There was no collusion or criminal conspiracy or abuse of official position by any public servant or officers of ICICI bank for reduction of rate of interest from 19% to 9.65%. Even forensic audit of record of loan conducted by M/s Pramod Kumar and Associates, opined that there seems to be normal business transaction and by closing loan by ICICI Bank, there was no violation of Section 19(2) of Banking Regulation Act," the agency told the trial court.Public Prosecutor Amjad Ali represented the CBI..[Read Order]
