The Bombay High Court on Tuesday asked why the Mumbai Police held a press conference last year over the alleged Television Rating Points (TRP) scam.
A bench of Justices SS Shinde and Manish Pitle said, “Is there any compulsion on the police to talk to the press?” Why did the commissioner (police) have to talk to the press? ”
HR started this question after reading in front of Senior Advocate Ashok Mundargi, representing ARG Outlayer Media. Press conference organized by the Commissioner of Police on October 8, 2020.
HC was hearing a petition filed by Republic TV, against which an FIR was lodged by the Mumbai Crime Branch seeking cancellation.
Mr. Mundargi told the bench that an FIR was registered against Republic TV on October 6, 2020 and the Commissioner of Police mentioned the channel in a press conference on October 8. “However, the company is not named in the FIR,” he said.
He said that on 13 October, the editor-in-chief and owner of the channel, Arnab Goswami, ran a show stating that the channel is not involved in the TRP scam. Two days later, a case of abetment to suicide was registered against Mr. Goswami in Raigad and he was arrested on 4 November.
Mr. Mundargi mentioned the names of the employees of the channel and said that there was a glitch in showing him as an accused in the remand applications on December 13, 2020, and then the suspect in the charge sheet by the Crime Branch on January 11, 2021.
The court intervened and said, “We are not getting into names, just the facts of the case.”
Now the matter will be heard on 17 March.
On October 8, 2020, Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh stated that a TRP racket was busted which included Republic TV, Box Cinema and Fake Marathi. He had said that the channels were manipulating TRPs and involved distorting the system used by Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) to rate television channels.
A total of 2,000 barometers have been installed in Mumbai to monitor the TRPs and BARC has given a confidential contract to monitor the barometer.
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