Delhi High Court has quashed complaints lodged against NewsClick and its founder Prabir Purkayastha by Delhi police and the Enforcement Directorate over allegations of foreign funding violations, pointing to “gross abuse of the law”.

Justice Neena Bansal Krishna said “the manner in which the investigations have been conducted clearly shows that the same is a fishing and roving exercise in the financial affairs of the news portal and its founder without the existence of any offence”.

NewsClick and Purkayastha were accused of cheating and receiving illegal foreign direct investment from US-based Worldwide Media Holdings and booked under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Failing to find any substantial evidence against them, the court said: “For the offence of cheating... there must be an aggrieved person who has been cheated out of his valuable property. In this case, Worldwide Media Holdings LLC... had forwarded $1.5 million to NewsClick.... However, there was no complaint whatsoever by the company about having been cheated by the news portal.”

The court observed that the complaint was made by an individual who was merely an informant and not the aggrieved person. “There is nothing which has emerged even during the investigation... that there was any person who was aggrieved or who was cheated by the petitioner,” the court said.

The court said no offence under Sections 406 (misappropriation of property) or 420 (cheating) of the IPC was disclosed in the FIR and in the investigations. “The continuation of such FIR is nothing but a gross abuse of the process of law and is hereby quashed,” it said.

The court held that there was “not a whisper of any incriminating allegation, which would even remotely suggest the commission of the offence punishable under Section 4 of the PMLA”.

It said merely entering into an agreement was not sufficient to constitute criminal conspiracy and quashed ED case as well.