Indrani Mukerjea is an Indian-born British former HR consultant and media executive, a main accused murderer in her daughter’s case.
In August 2015, she was arrested by Mumbai Police and charged as the main accused in the alleged murder of her daughter, Sheena Bora.
[19] The other half was held by private equity firms for a total funding of $170 million (₹750 crore according to the exchange rate at the time).
[22] Peter Mukerjea, bound by a non-compete clause from his previous employer, became chairman of the human resources company INX Services Private Limited in January 2007.
[16] At INX Media, Peter looked after advertisement, finance, distribution and revenues while Indrani was in charge of content, human resources and marketing.
[27] By September 2008, all the investors in INX Media were looking to sell some part of their stake to raise funding for the second phase of expansion.
[27] Employees suspected that TRP ratings of the general entertainment channel 9X were being added to those of NewsX in order to present a rosy picture to the investors.
An audit conducted by Temasek Holdings brought up suspicions that the Mukerjeas had siphoned off ₹160 crores (₹1.6 billion) from the company.
[38] Starting from mid-2007 Indrani Mukerjea, as the chairperson of INX News, found herself in conflict with Vir Sanghvi, the CEO over control of the organization.
[40][41][42][43] On the evening of January 31, 2008 Indrani Mukerjea fired five television journalists at NewsX without prior notice or explanation: executive editor Avirook Sen, head of domestic news, Rajesh Sundaram, editorial adviser Nick Pollard, consultant Arun Roy Chowdhury, and news anchor Kailash Menon.
[44][45] Protesting against this unprofessional conduct, a further nine television journalists resigned, among them news coordinator Prakash Patra, and Narendra Nag.
[46] The following day, February 1, 2008, a group of former NewsX employees took their grievances to Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, then Minister of Information and Broadcasting in the Government of India.
[47][48] Dasmunshi conveyed their concern over dubious sources of funding at INX Media to P. Chidambaram, then Minister of Finance in the Government of India.
[49][50][51] Chidambaram in turn requested the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) to look into the allegations of financial impropriety.
[52] In February 2008 Rajesh Sundaram and Avirook Sen filed legal notices against NewsX seeking damages over their unfair dismissal.
[53] By September 15, 2008 Avirook Sen had received a settlement worth ₹2 crore (₹20 million) paid out over four equal monthly installments.
[54] In the weeks following the departure of Vir Sanghvi, there was a mass exodus of talent from NewsX,[55] leaving it unable to meet its commitment to jittery investors of the launch of a news channel by March 31, 2008.
[60][61] In September 2015 the Mumbai office of the Enforcement Directorate indicated that it would reopen the 2010 FEMA case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
[68][69] CBI officials contended that Peter and Indrani Mukerjea had siphoned off money from INX Media and parked it in an offshore bank account in Sheena Bora's name.