The CBI on Saturday evening registered another case against tainted journalist Upendra Rai for extortion of Rs 15 crore from a Mumbai based real estate firm owner facing Income Tax probes. The FIR was based on the complaint filed by Balvinder Singh Malhotra, owner of White lion Real Estate Developers. CBI said that Rai extorted money in connivance with certain Income Tax officials.
In its complaint, which is part of the seven pages FIR, Malhotra said that he was first threatened by media persons on behalf of Rai about the adverse finings in Income Tax probes. In IT raid and probe, it was found that Malhotra was running a more than 80 shell firms having huge money flow. Upendra Rai arm-twisted Malhotra to pay Rs 15 cr for not publishing the damning reports of the IT and for helping him to settle the case with Income tax officials. “Upendra Rai demanded huge amount of money to settle the issue with IT department and adverse media reporting. He claimed he had contacted in IT office, Scindia House, Mumbai,” says the FIR.
“Succumbing to the pressure, a consultancy agreement had to be signed to work out an arrangement to pay the huge amount demanded. Thus, a consultancy agreement dated October 3, 2017 was prepared between M/s Upendra Rai and Associates and White lion from October 1, 2017 till September 30, 2018,” it adds.
According to CBI FIR, Rs 15 core was transferred to the HDFC and Axis Bank accounts of Upendra Rai and created a fake consultancy deal to transfer money. The money transfer was in many installments from October 2017 to April 2018.
As per the agreement, a sum of Rs 15,19,50,000 (excluding GST and TDS) has been paid from our Axis Bank, Bandra account to Rai’s HDFC Bank account between October 2017 and Aril 2018, says the complaint of Malhotra, part of the CBI’s FIR.
Upendra Rai is already in CBI custody for huge fund flow of more than 100 crore in previous year and forging documents to obtain sensitive Airport Entry Pass (AEP). He was Editor of Sahara Group’s media firms and later joined Tehalka. Recently he floated a newsportal titled as Print line. In 2011, Rai and Sahara Group owner Subrata Rai had faced Contempt Charges from Supreme Court for threatening 2G Scam cases investigating officers of Enforcement Directorate on behalf of controversial lobbyist Nira Radia.