The Cyber Crime police of Hyderabad busted the fake share transfer racket indulged in by sacked chief executive officer of popular Telugu television channel TV9 V Ravi Prakash and Telugu actor Sivaji to mislead the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and prevent the new management from taking over of the channel.
The Cyber Crime police discovered that the share transfer agreement between Ravi Prakash and Sivaji was not the old one, but was a fake deal signed in April this year with ante-dated documents. An e-mail correspondence in this regard was retrieved by the police from the hard disks.
According to the leaks given by the police to various media houses, the correspondence was done among a person by name Sakthi and TV9 director M K V N Murthy, another person Hari who is said to be closer to Ravi Prakash.
Though Ravi Prakash team deleted these emails from the server, the police retrieved the discussions in the emails with the help of forensic experts.
According to the correspondence, Sivaji had signed an agreement with Ravi Prakash on February 20, 2018, for purchase of 40,000 shares.
However, it was revealed from the e-mail correspondence that the draft agreement was prepared by a Vijayawada-based advocate on April 13, 2019.
The draft was mailed by Sakthi to chief finance officer Murthy on the same day at 5.46 pm and the copies were marked to Ravi Prakash and Hari.
The e-mail correspondence clearly mentioned that the draft was prepared with ante-date – February 20, 2018. The cybercrime police have procured these details by retrieving emails with the help of forensic experts.
The police during search operations that were conducted in the houses of Sivaji and Ravi Prakash, got key information with regard to email discussions, draft copies of the fake share purchase agreement and also the petition to be filed by Sivaji with NCLT with the help of the Vijayawada advocate on April 14, 2019.
The Cyber Crime police served a notice on Ravi Prakash and others under Section 41 of the CrPC only based on these seized documents.
While the high court refused to grant anticipatory bail to Ravi Prakash, the police are now exploring the options of arresting him. In the meantime, NCLT, too, deferred its further hearing to next week.