Mumbai police names Arnab Goswami as an accused in second TRP chargesheet.
The Mumbai police's Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU), which is probing the matter, purportedly tagged him in the second charge sheet submitted before a magistrate's court on Tuesday.
In the 1,800-page chargesheet, Mr. Goswami is listed with Shivendu Mulekar, chief operational officer Priya Mukherjee, and chief finance officer Shiva Sundaram.
The lawyer for Republic TV's Editor-in-Chief, Arnab Goswami, commented on the situation, saying, "Among others, Goswami and ARG Outlier have been named as accused in the chargesheet."
last year on the 8th of October, Republic TV along with TV channels like Box Cinema, and Fakt Marathi, were named by the Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh for its alleged involvement in a TRP racket which they claim to have 'busted.'
He said that the channels were manipulating TRPs and distorting the mechanism used to assess television channels by the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC).
On October 6, the police filed a FIR, followed by two chargesheets.
In March, the Bombay High Court reprimanded the Mumbai police for failing to provide evidence against Republic despite issuing charge sheets. The judge observed that there appeared to be no proof against Republic Television.
"And this FIR is of October 2020. We are in March 2021. We have seen in matters "khichdi pak rahi hai". Why keep the sword hanging on their head? You are investigating for the last 3 months and you have no evidence against them. Their contention is that they are always in the fear that some action may be taken against them and it seems so from the past action against their employees," the Court observed.
The Bombay High Court's findings came after Republic TV argued to the court that Mumbai Police had purposefully not identified Goswami and others as suspects, so that they would not be able to petition courts for want of locus to drop the case.
Partho Dasgupta, the former chief executive officer of BARC, and 14 others are also being prosecuted.
The charges include that of Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 406 (punishment for criminal breach of trust), 465 (punishment for forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender), 204 (destruction of document or electronic record to prevent its production as evidence), and 212 (harbouring offender) of the Indian Penal Code.
The court also ruled that if the police intended to summon Goswami or other coercive measures, he should be given three days' notice.
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