Hours after a forgery case was booked against him, TV9 CEO Ravi Prakash appeared on the channel on Thursday evening and denied the allegations against him that were doing the rounds and dubbed the charges as false.
"Nobody arrested me. Nobody will arrest me. There has been false propaganda in a section of media since morning that I am absconding. I am very much on duty and I am speaking as the CEO of TV9 only," he said.
The Cyberabad police on Thursday said that they had registered two cases against the leading television news channel’s CEO and some others of the company on charges of forgery, cheating and criminal conspiracy.
Police said the cases were booked a few days ago and searches were conducted at various places in connection with one of the cases.
Cyber crime police of Cyberabad Police Commissionerate on April 24 registered a case on a complaint from P. Kaushik Rao, Director of Alanda Media & Entertainments Pvt. Ltd., that Ravi Prakash, actor S. Shivaji and others committed forgery by false documents for their wrongful gain.
The dispute relates to Alanda Media buying 80% stake in TV9 recently. Ravi Prakash was reportedly opposing Alanda's move to appoint its own directors and had allegedly indulged in forgery.
The accused were booked under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 469 (forgery for purpose of harming reputation), 471 (using a forged document or electronic record as genuine) and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) and sections 66 and 72 of Information Technology Act and investigation was taken up by the Cyber Crime Police.
On the search warrant issued by a court, the police on Thursday conducted searches at the office of Associated Broadcasting Company (P) Ltd (ABCL), which owns TV9 channel, residences of Ravi Prakash, Shivaji and M V K N Murthy.
"During searches in various places, the teams have seized important documents and electronic evidence. The seized materials will be forwarded to Forensic Science Laboratory for further analysis," police said.
Another case was registered against Ravi Prakash, M K V N Murthy and others on April 30 on a complaint by Kaushik Rao. They were booked under various IPC sections for cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy and under sections 66-C, 66-D of Information Act.
Police said investigation was being done in this case and further action will be taken as per law.
Meanwhile, Ravi Prakash said a case related to disputes in the management would come up for hearing at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on May 16.
IANS inputs