Enforcement Directorate studies bank deals of 5 music firms

Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has begun the process of conducting financial scrutiny of the five music companies who have been accused of not paying royalty to lyricist and music composers in a multi-crore royalty scam being probed by the agency. The agency recorded statement of Devraj Sanyal, MD Universal Music on Wednesday. As the part of the monetary scrutiny, the ED started checking the bank transactions registered in the name of the accused music companies, to ascertain the money trail.

Investigators said large quantum of money had passed via the accounts over past years. “We are studying the source of the money that came in and the purpose for which it was diverted out,” said an ED officer, requesting anonymity.

The investigators stated that the statements of the bigwigs representing music labels has revealed that artists had to mostly negotiate with them for the initial amount of royalty. It came with a rider that the royalty payment would happen only while dealing with fresh creation for which the artist would hunt a music label.

The ED has recorded statements of Bhushan Kumar managing director of T-Series, Vikram Mehra of Saregama music and Shridhar Subramanium vice-president of Sony Music India. The detailed statements are being weighed based on facts given by them.

Sanyal was also grilled on the same lines by an ED team on Wednesday. “Sanyal’s questioning has also given us insight into the functioning of the music companies and roles of other agencies,” an ED officer said.

When asked if any of the accused labels has offered to pay the outstanding royalty, the ED officials said it was not true. The ED will grill one of the big names, Aditya Chopra of Yash Raj Films, on Thursday.