Former TV9 CEO finally appears before Hyderabad police

Hyderabad: Ravi Prakash, former CEO of multilingual television news channel TV9 who was evading arrest in a forgery and cheating case for nearly a month, finally appeared before police in Hyderabad.

Officials at Central Crime Station (CCS) questioned Ravi Prakash for five hours on Tuesday in three cases registered against him last month on the complaint of the new management of the channel.

A police official said Ravi Prakash was directed to appear again on Wednesday.

The former TV9 CEO told reporters that he was falsely implicated in three cases. He said he would continue to fight for truth and "for the good of the society till the last drop of his blood".

The well-known anchor appeared before police a day after the Supreme Court rejected his plea for anticipatory bail and asked him to comply with the notices issued to him by the police.

Earlier, the Telangana High Court had rejected his anticipatory bail petition, after which he had approached the apex court.

Ravi Prakash, who had been heading TV9 channel since its launch in 2004, was last month sacked as CEO by Alanda Media & Entertainments Pvt Ltd, which acquired 90.54 per cent stake in Associated Broadcasting Pvt Ltd (ABCPL), the owner of the TV9 group of channels.

The police had earlier booked criminals cases against Ravi Prakash, former TV9 CFO M. K. V. N Murthy and actor S. Shivaji on two complaints by Alanda Director P. Kaushik Rao.

They were charged with forgery, cheating and criminal conspiracy. The cases were a fallout of Ravi Prakash's rift with Alanda after it acquired majority shares in ABCPL in August 2018 and nominated four persons to be appointed as directors on the board.

Alanda alleged that they had malafide intention of not allowing it to participate in the management of ABCPL through its new directors.