NEW DELHI: Is it the return of the prodigal? An old Zee Telefilms hand, Sunil Khanna, who had quit the group earlier this year has trudged back home to take up a new assignment in the fledgling DTH division, Dish TV.

Though there has been no official communication on this development, company sources told indiantelevision.com that Khanna has been sitting in Zee's office on the outskirts of Delhi in Noida, which also houses the DTH division and the swanky uplink and play-out facility apart from the Zee News operation.

It is being said that Khanna has joined as the head of the KU-band direct-to-home television service, promoted by Subhash Chandra-controlled Essel Group. The DTH license holder is a Chandra company, ASC Enterprise.

Khanna, who has been associated with the Zee Group for over a decade, quit in June. At that time he was the president of Zee Network's flagship channel, Zee TV. Prior to this stint, he was on the distribution side of the group as the Zee Turner chief executive and before that, had worked closely with a younger brother of Chandra, Jawahar Goel, at Siti Cable.

Khanna's quitting the top post at Zee TV came six months after he took over the responsibilities from Apurva Purohit (now COO of the Times Group's TV venture) with a view to overhauling the fortunes of the channel.

There were rumours in the industry that Khanna was headed towards Reliance Infocomm, which has been picking up professionals who have been associated with various media group's distribution side. But indiantelevision.com, had also reported that chances of Khanna "being accommodated elsewhere in the Essel group" (the umbrella organisation under which Chandra carries out his various business activities) could not be ruled out.