A Delhi High Court division bench quashed the proceedings against Prannoy and Radhika Roy on Monday, nearly a decade after the income-tax department served reassessment notices to the founders of NDTV.

The bench of Justice Dinesh Mehta and Justice Vinod Kumar also asked the I-T department to pay Rs 1 lakh each to the Roys.

“Notices issued to the petitioners and any consequent order or proceedings thereto are quashed,” the bench said in the order, as reported by legal news websites.

“No amount of cost can be treated as enough for these cases. However, we cannot leave these cases without imposing any. Hence, we impose a token cost of Rs 1 lakh each to be paid to the respondents to each of the petitioners.”

The I-T department had served notices to the founders of NDTV alleging interest-free loans were advanced to RRPR Holding Pvt Ltd that was owned by Radhika and Prannoy Roy.

In 2017, the husband and wife moved the high court against the I-T notice with the argument that the reassessment proceedings amounted to a second reopening for the same assessment year.

They stated that the I-T department had earlier reopened the assessment in July 2011 and had examined the case, which concluded with a reassessment order in March 2013.

The petitioners challenged the assessing officer’s remark on the limited scope of the earlier reassessment and argued that once a reassessment was initiated, the entire under-assessed income can be examined.

They also argued that reopening the same issue would be a “change of opinion”, not permissible under the law.

The bench turned down the I-T department’s plea to reopen an already closed case.

In September 2024, a court had quashed the similar reassessment proceedings in a separate tax-related case involving the NDTV founders,