Troubles seem only to mount for debt-ridden Hyderabad-based Deccan Chronicle Holdings Ltd. A team of Chandigarh police arrested one of the publishing company's former directors ina cheating case filed by a lender.

Menakuru Sukumar Reddy, an erstwhile director of the group, was taken into custody by the Chandigarh police. The fate of the other accused in the case is not clear at the moment. The police team landed in Hyderabad on Tuesday to serve non-bailable warrants to the accused in a Rs 6-crore cheque-bouncing case filed by Religare Finvest Limited.

A Chandigarh court had recently issued the NBWs against all the present and former directors of DCHL. The accused include DCHL chairman T Venkatrami Reddy, vice-chairman and managing director T Vinayak Ravi Reddy, vice-chairman and authorized signatory P K Iyer, former directors Sukumar Reddy, Siddartha Pendyala and Suresh Venkaparamani.

The NBWs were issued for the failure of the accused to present themselves in the Chandigarh court. The court has in the past rejected a plea by the accused to exempt them from personal appearance. While issuing the NBWs, the court has also set July 30 as the next date of hearing in the case.

Religare Finvest is one of the 24 lenders of DCHL, which is believed to be steeped in debts totaling a whopping Rs 4,000 crores. The financial investor filed a criminal complaint against the DCHL after two of the latter’s cheques amounting to Rs 6 crore bounced. According to reports, the beleaguered media group still owes Religare about Rs 63 crores in debts.

The latest action comes within a week of the CBI registering a cheating case. The media group was accused of willfully using forged documents to secure a loan of Rs 1230 crores from Bengaluru-bsed Canara Bank.