The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has imposed a penalty of INR 184 crore under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) against news portal NewsClick and its founder-editor, Prabir Purkayastha, following an investigation into the media outlet’s foreign funding patterns.

The adjudication order, issued on 16 February 2026, levies a fine of INR 120 crore on PPK NewsClick Studio, the company that owns the portal, while Purkayastha has been personally penalised INR 64 crore. The agency said the penalties were imposed under Section 13(1) of FEMA, holding Purkayastha liable under Section 42 as the person in charge of the company’s affairs during the period under scrutiny.  The total penalty imposed in the case amounts to INR 184 crore.

According to the ED, the violations were “substantial, deliberate, and systemic”, involving large-scale foreign exchange transactions and alleged breaches of statutory declarations furnished to regulatory authorities. The agency has alleged that the company received foreign direct investment (FDI) of approximately INR 9.59 crore in 2018–19 by misrepresenting the nature of its business in statutory filings, thereby bypassing prescribed sectoral conditions and entry-route requirements.

The ED had first raided the NewsClick office and Purkayastha’s residence in 2021 over allegations of money laundering and foreign funding.

In October 2023, the ED again raided the NewsClick office and the residences of nearly 80 journalists and other individuals associated with the New Delhi-based organisation. Computers and mobile phones of its employees and independent writers who wrote for it were seized. NewsClick website’s founder and editor Prabir Purkayastha was arrested under UAPA, a stringent antiterrorism law.

He was later released in May 2024, after the Supreme Court ruled his arrest by the ED illegal and “invalid in the eyes of law” since it failed to communicate the grounds for detention in writing to him.