The Bombay HC Tuesday while hearing pleas regarding🎃 the alleged Television Rating Points (TRP) scam questioned the Mumbai Police’s decision to hold a press conference regarding the i🤪ssue.
TV viewership—called the Television Rating Point or TRP—is measured through a complex system that involves installing a device that can detect which channel was viewed in households during a particu꧅lar period of time. More viewership means more revenue as advertisers go to channels that grab maximum eyeballs.
The Mumbai Pඣolice had alleged that Republic TV inflated its viewership by handing out bribes to members who had installed the device in their houses.
"Does the police have an obligation to interact with the press? Why did the commissioner (of police) have to speak to the press?" a bench of Justices SS Shinde and Manish Pitale asked.
The court was hearing pleas filed by ARG Outlier Media Pvt Ltd, the company that owns Rep💙ublic TV channels, and by journalist Arnab Goswami, seeking, among other reliefs, that the Mumbai police's probe into the TRP scam be transferred to the CBI or any other independent agency.
The bench was responding to the arguments made by the ARG Outlier Me♈dia's counsel, senior advocate Ashok Mundargi.
Mundargi told the high court that th༒e police had malafide intentions behind holding the press conference in October last year.
He also said there was no evidence against Republic TV and its Editor-iꦆn-Chief Arnab Goswami, but the police were trying to name them as accused🐻 "by hook or by crook".
"The police♍ were feeding the press that a particular scam took place. This points out that there was not sufficient material to say whatever was being said," Mundargi argued.
He also said the police had arrested some employees of the ARG Outlier Media💙 and named them as accused persons i🗹n their remand applications.
However, in the charge sheet, the police had named the channel and ARG Ouꦚtlier Media's employees merely aജs suspects, he said.
Mundargi also said thatಌ Sachin Waze, w🌜ho had been handling the probe into the alleged scam, and who is now suspended over his alleged involvement in another case, was a controversial officer.
"The investigation has taken a peculiar angle. In the charge sheet they are suspects, they are arrested and then they are sꦑhown as wanted accused," Mundargi sai⭕d.
"The officer (Waze) is ✃also very controversial. This is the chain of events," he said.
The HC w♊ill continue🍰 hearing the final arguments in the case on Wednesday.
The🌠 Maharashtra government's statement made earlier this month to refrain from taking any coercive action against Goswami and the ARG Ouꦡtlier Media's employees will continue till then.
The ARG Outlier Media and Goswami approached the HC last year filing a bunch of petitions seeking several r🅷eliefs in the TRP scam.
They alleged that the whole case was malafide and they had been targeted for Republic TV's reportage in connection with the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput and the Palghar lynchin🦩g case last year.
T𝐆he Mumbai police in January this year filed two affidavits in the TRP case through Commissioner ofไ Police Param Bir Singh and ACP Shashank Sandbhor of the crime branch, saying they had not targeted the Republic TV or its employees.
The police said their probe into the case was not a result of any political vendetta and there was evidence to show that Goswami had conni🐻ved with senior officials of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) to rig the TRP of Republic TV.
(With PTI inputs)
