Delhi High Court quashes cases against NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha
Big news: The Delhi High Court has thrown out both a fraud case and a money-laundering investigation against NewsClick and its founder Prabir Purkayastha.
The cases accused them of breaking foreign direct investment (FDI) rules by inflating share values.
But Justice Neena Bansal Krishna said the accusations didn't actually add up to criminal offenses, calling the first information report (FIR) "a gross abuse of the process of law" and describing the Enforcement Directorate's probe as "an arbitrary attack and abuse of powers on the free and impartial journalism of the Petitioners."
RBI finds 2018 investment FEMA compliant
Turns out, the $1.5 million investment in 2018 was made before stricter FDI rules for digital media came in 2019, and the RBI confirmed the inflow was under the automatic route with no Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) violations.
Claims about fund mismanagement were brushed off as normal business spending, and there were no complaints from investors.
Once the original FIR was quashed, the Enforcement Directorate's money-laundering case was quashed too.