TRP Scam : Karnataka High Court To Pass Order Tomorrow On Anticipatory Bail Plea Of Republic TV COO

The Karnataka High Court will on Wednesday pass its order on the anticipatory bail application filed by Chief Operating Officer Priya Mukherjee of ARG Outlier Media Private Ltd which runs RepublicTV & R Bharat channels.

A single bench of Justice H P Sandesh will be passing the order. Mukherjee has sought transit bail as she is apprehending arrest in the Fake Television Rating Points (TRP) Scam case registered by the Mumbai police.

Senior advocate Devadatt Kamat appearing for the Mumbai police raised preliminary objection on the maintainability of the petition. He said "This is nothing but forum shopping and submitted that petition is not maintainable."

Relying on the petition filed before the Bombay High Court seeking to quash the FIR, Kamat argued that this petition under section 438 of CrPC, filed before this court is a cut and paste of the petition filed before the Bombay High Court, where relief is sought against employees of the company and others. The same has not been produced before this court by the applicant. "It is a case where after having got no relief from the Bombay High Court this is a second attempt to bite at the cherry."

He also submitted that police were never informed on November 19, that she will be available before the investigating agency on November 24, as being said by the applicant. He relied on the communication sent by her to the investigating agency, in which there was no mention of the date. Further he submitted that the police team left Mumbai on November 20, for Bangalore apprehending that she had absconded.

Kamat also submitted that the key link between the arrested accused Ghansyam Singh and the present applicant is the phone chats. The urgent need for her interrogation is because she is in a habit of deleting her phone chats as is recorded in her statement. "Therefore the delay in coming before the investigating agency, as evidence is going to be tampered," he submitted."

The Counsel for Priya Mukherjee refuted the contentions raised by the Mumbai police saying "It was not she who had approached the Bombay HC but it was Arnab Goswami who had approached the court for himself." He added that when notice was issued to her the applicant has attended before the investigating officer and cooperated in the probe and will do so in future.

He prayed for 20 days time to approach the Bombay HC and protection till then.

It was also said that "It is quite atrocious on the part of respondent 3 to go behind a lady. They (respondent 3) want to prove a point to somebody else."