WhatsApp Chats Between Arnab Goswami And Ex- BARC CEO Friendly Banter, Nothing To Do With TRP Manipulation: Republic TV To Bombay High Court

A division bench of Justices SS Shinde and Manish Pitale was hearing a petition by Goswami and ARG Outlier Media Private Ltd, the company that owns Republic TV, seeking quashing of the FIR and charge sheet in the TRP Scam, for the fourth consecutive day.

Senior Advocate Ashok Mundargi appearing for the petitioners submitted that the chats have nothing to do with the TRP Scam. "There is not one message or chat about bribing people [for manipulating TRPs]. It will only show they are two very close friends chatting on subjects that friends ordinarily chat about. Sometimes they are abusing someone, inviting each other for drinks..."

He said Goswami and Dasgupta have worked together at Times News Network.

Mundargi argued that a misleading chart of the chats was submitted to the single bench which granted bail to Dasgupta, last month. He urged the court to refer to the original chat even when the prosecution argues as the chats were taken 'out of context'.

"At one stage the chart says 'for distribution of money.' The actual chat was in respect of creating a distribution network for Republic TV before the channel even started. The chat is from March whereas Republic TV was started in May 2017," he said.

The court then sought to know how the chats made their way to the charge sheet.

Justice Shinde - How can a chat be retrieved?

Chief Public Prosecutor Deepak Thakare said the chats were procured by the Forensic Science Laboratory.

Justice Pitale - If a deleted chat can be procured then where is the privacy? What is all this about end-to-end encryption?

Thakare then said that the FSL would be able to answer these questions.

During the hearing, the bench repeatedly sought to know from Mundargi if the prayers in the petition could be granted when the petitioners were not even accused in the TRP Scam.

"What needs to be considered is whether the petitioners can pray for quashing despite only being suspects," Justice Shinde said.

The bench noted that Mundargi wasn't being clear if he was arguing only for the company or the employees as well.

"Now if some material surfaces against an individual employee, can it still be considered in this petition, where the company is the petitioner? There is no provision in law where we can restrict the investigation" Justice Shinde stated.

"This investigation will come to an end the day they arrest petitioner no. 2 (Arnab Goswami)," Mundargi responded. The Court, however, noted that was the domain of the investigating officer.

The Court then urged Thakare to make a statement on Wednesday and give a rough estimate on the time required to complete the investigation.

"We can understand if there are absconding accused or if material from other states is required to be procured. But for you, everything is right here. The law does not state when you should end the investigation, we are not saying end it in a month but give us a rough estimate," Justice Shinde said before the matter was adjourned to Wednesday.

On Thursday, the bench had observed that even after three months of investigation by the Mumbai Police's Crime Branch, prima facie, there is nothing substantial on the record against Goswami and Republic TV.