Mumbai: The Income Tax Department recently conducted raids at the Mumbai offices of Namit Malhotra’s Prime Focus Ltd, the production house behind Ranbir Kapoor’s much-awaited ‘Ramayana’, reportedly as part of a probe into alleged overseas money transfers.
According to a report by the Free Press Journal, the searches were conducted on Wednesday morning.
Officials are reportedly examining foreign remittances made by Prime Focus Ltd, including transfers of funds from India to overseas destinations. Further details about the transactions under scrutiny and the outcome of the searches are awaited.
Led by Namit Malhotra, Prime Focus is a global media and entertainment services company with operations spanning visual effects, animation, post-production and content production.
The company has a significant international presence, with reports suggesting that around 92% of its revenue comes from markets outside India.
Prime Focus had also come under regulatory scrutiny earlier this year. In June, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) closed adjudication proceedings concerning the company’s accounting practices and financial disclosures.
Malhotra, a film producer and VFX pioneer, founded Prime Focus from his father’s garage in Mumbai in the mid-1990s. He later merged the company with Video Workshop, helping establish Prime Focus as a major name in Bollywood’s visual-effects space.
He subsequently partnered with London-based Double Negative to establish DNEG. As CEO, Malhotra oversaw the company’s work on several acclaimed productions, with DNEG winning eight Oscars for Best Visual Effects, including for Inception (2011) and Dune: Part Two (2025).
Malhotra is currently producing Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana with Ranbir Kapoor and Yash, with Prime Focus involved in the film’s large-scale visual-effects work.
Directed by Tiwari, Ramayana stars Ranbir Kapoor as Lord Ram, Sai Pallavi as Sita and Yash as Ravana. The cast also features Sunny Deol as Hanuman and Ravi Dubey as Lakshman.
The epic is planned as a two-part film franchise, with the first instalment scheduled to release on Diwali this year and the second part slated for 2027.
