"The Target Is Arnab Goswami, No One Else": Republic TV Tells Bombay High Court In Plea Challenging FIR In TRP Scam

A division bench of Justices SS Shinde and Manish Pitale were hearing petitions filed by ARG Outlier Media Private Limited, the company that owns Republic TV and Goswami challenging the Mumbai Police's investigation into the TRP Scam.

"The target is petitioner no. 2 (Arnab Goswami), no one else," Senior Advocate Ashok Mundargi, representing both the petitioners, submitted, adding that Mumbai Police's act of not naming the channel as an accused, yet, not letting it off the hook, showed malafide intention.

"Showing people [Republic TV & its employees only] as suspects is not that innocent an act as the prosecution would like to show before the court," he argued, adding that it was a tactic to keep the criminal prosecution open ended.

Ashok Mundargi, appearing with Advocate Niranjan Mumdargi, was responding to Mumbai Police's contentions that the petitions were not maintainable, as, neither Republic nor Goswami were named as accused yet.

He said that in the first charge sheet, Republic TV and its "chalak- malak" (owners) were named as suspects. Then, in the December 13, 2020, remand application of Republic TV CEO – Vikas Khanchandani – senior employees of Republic TV were named as wanted accused. However, in the second charge sheet, "everyone connected to the channel is a suspect," Mundargi subimtted. He urged the bench to "read between the lines."

Mundargi further argued that since Goswami was the Editor-in-Chief of Republic TV and ARG owned the channel, the petitions were maintainable.

Mumbai police's malafide was reflected right from the time they called it a TRP Scam in the press conference on October 8, 2020, he added. He informed the court that there are thousands of bar-o-meters installed in the country, out of which only 6 per cent were installed in Mumbai.

They have taken statements from eight homes, of which, only three have said they were asked to watch a particular channel, Mundargi argued, adding, "But they want the court to believe these statements and they claim advertisers are cheated."

He pointed out that Mumbai Police was aware of TRP manipulation in June 2020 itself, but nothing was done about it. He criticised the Mumbai Police Commissioner, Parambir Singh, for holding a press conference on October 8, 2020 to announce the TRP scam, and name Republic TV, though they were not named in the FIR.

"They have not denied the press conference. I am referring to this because he says BARC has implicated Republic. I am here to show the channel was never under inquiry by BARC," Mundargi argued.

Justice Shinde then sought to know if there was a statutory provision specifying amount of advertisement that a channel would get if the channel had certain kind of TRP. "It's only a market practice. There is no offence under any Act for a financial arrangement with a cable operator for placement of a channel," Mundargi responded.

"But higher the TRP, higher the commanding position of a channel," Justice Pitale said.

Justice Shinde then asked how could someone decide what was a 'big channel"? "A channel is a channel," he observed.

"For the police, the present channel (Republic TV) is a big channel," Mundargi answered, referring to the CP's press conference, where he called Republic a 'big entity.'

Mundargi submitted that according to the press conference, a BARC report was the source of the CP's information. "There is no report by BARC, analytical or otherwise, that Republic manipulated TRPs. Now, the other channel which was named, is being given a clean chit," he argued.

"The long and short is the police officer was feeding the press that there was a scam. This interview (press conference) points out that there was not sufficient material to say whatever was being said," Mundargi added.

He then cited a letter from BARC to Goswami, dated November 20, 2020, where Goswami had sought to know if there was any inquiry against them. "There is no disciplinary proceeding initiated against Republic TV or Republic Bharat from 2017 under the Code of Conduct for Redressing Viewership Malpractices," BARC's response said.

The court then sought to know what was the BARC report that the CP had relied on.

Special PP Shishir Hirey said it was a report commissioned by the BARC itself. "Partho Dasgupta (CEO, BARC) had resigned, so, BARC got this forensic analysis done," he said.

Mundargi submitted that the report was not a part of the first charge sheet. The court then adjourned the matter for hearing on Tuesday