Mumbai Court Accepts Maharashtra Govt Plea To Withdraw Prosecution In Alleged TRP Scam Case In Which Arnab Goswami Is An Accused

The chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court at Mumbai has allowed an application filed by Special Public Prosecutor representing the Maharashtra Police to withdraw or stop all prosecution into the alleged Television Rating Points Scam (TRP), including the allegations against Republic TV's editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami.

The application was filed under section 321 of the CrPC by Special Public Prosecutor Shishir Hiray. The section allows the Public Prosecutor to withdraw from the prosecution of any person in respect of any offences for which he is tried. For doing so, consent of the Court is necessary.

Hiray claimed that the decision taken by the Maharashtra Government, followed by the consent of the Mumbai Police in his opinion was legal and proper since three investigating agencies (Maharashtra Police, CBI and ED) have investigated the case with different outcomes.

“Witnesses whose statements were recorded initially during the Mumbai Police investigation had stated on oath under section 164 of the CrPC that their statements were either wrongly or falsely recorded by the Mumbai Police.”

The Case

On October 6, 2020, the police registered an FIR under Sections 409, 420, 120-B and 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 on a complaint that certain individuals in whose houses barometers had been installed, were bribed to increase a channel's TRP.

The police claimed that channels were paying money to intermediaries like employees of Hansa Research Group — which measures TRPs on behalf of Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) — to boost the TRPs.

Then Commissioner of Police Parambir Singh took a massive press conference to announce the TRP Scam as a big scam unearthed by the Mumbai Police.

Chargesheet

On March 24, 2021, the Bombay High Court granted Goswami limited protection from arrest in his petition alleging 'serious malafides' against the police, especially against the then CP Param Bir Singh.

Subsequently in June 2021, the police named Goswami and four others from ARG Outlier Media (that owns Republic TV) in their 1800 page supplementary charge sheet. The other accused included COO Priya Mukherjee, Shivendu Mulelkar and Shiva Sundaram, earlier shown as wanted accused.

By then the police had chargeeted 15 people in the case, including former CEO of Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) Partho Dasgupta and Republic TVs CEO Vikash Khanchandani.

In September 2022, ED gave a clean chit to Republic TV and R Bharat stating that its probe was at variance with Mumbai Police's probe. It however charbgesheeted Box Cinema, Fakt Marathi and Maha Movies channels and several relationship managers (RMs) associated with Hansa Research Group, a contractor employed by the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), which is a ratings agency.

Withdrawal of Prosecution

A couple of months ago, SPP filed the application seeking to stop/withdraw prosecution in the Case.

“In the crime investigated by other agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED), individuals other than the present accused are charge-sheeted. Witnesses whose statements were recorded initially during the Mumbai Police investigation had stated on oath under section 164 of the CrPC that their statements were either wrongly or falsely recorded by the Mumbai Police.”

It further claimed that none of the advertisers or BARC came forward to complain.

“In this offense, BARC, the sole authority for collecting viewership technical data and controlling the same, has not filed any complaint with any investigating authority. In view of the said complaint not being filed by the concerned government authority, it will be a futile exercise to continue with the said present prosecution,” the plea said.

Accordingly the court allowed the application.