[Breaking] TRP Scam Case : Mumbai Sessions Court Denies Bail To Ex-BARC Chief Partho Dasgupta

A sessions court is Mumbai dismissed the bail application of Partho Dasgupta, ex-CEO of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), who was arrested in the alleged Television Rating Points (TRP) scam case on December 24, 2020. His application for bail reserved for orders, on Tuesday, after the Mumbai Police vehemently argued against granting him bail. Special Public Prosecutor Shishir Hirey read out several Watsapp chats between Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami and Dasputa to display their 'proximity.' In one of the chats cited in the supplementary chargesheet Goswami allegedly offers to mediate with the PMO's office on behalf of Dasgupta, while in another they speak about manipulating the TRPs of Republic to surpass Times Now. Hirey argued that Dasgupta, in his capacity as the CEO of BARC, was supposed to be a neutral party and that the rise in TRPs of a channel was directly proportional to its ad-revenue. Hirey further submitted that he ex-BARC CEO can influence witnesses if he is granted bail. A graduate from IIM Calcutta, Partho Dasgupta's was the CEO of Broadcast Audience Research Council ("BARC") between June 2013 and November 2019. The Crime Branch has charged him under sections 409(criminal breach of trust by a public servant), 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code. Represented by advocates Shardul Singh and Arjun Singh, Dasgupta argued that there was nothing more left to be recovered from him. The chats were not authenticated by a 65B certificate under the Indian Evidence Act. Moreover, an Oversight Committee has certified by their own report that TRPs cannot be tampered with manually. It is very scintillating to read someone's private chats but those need to have some evidentiary value, Singh said. Explaining the manner in which TRP data is collected, he argued that "The viewership data is collected by Hansa Group (complainant), BARC's alogrithms are applied and TRP Data is published." Moreover, they have argued that there is no corroborative evidence of manipulation of chats. They claimed the prosecution has relied heavily on a private report to show manipulation trying to pass it off as a forensic audit. Importantly the co-accused who was allegedly directly involved in manipulation, according to the report, is already on bail. Last week the Mumbai Police filed a 3,400-page supplementary charge sheet into the television rating point (TRP) case naming Vikas Khanchandani, CEO of Republic TV; Romil Ramgarhia and Dasgupta, CCO and CEO of Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), respectively and Republic TV's COO Priya Mukherjee. The Crime Branch has claimed that Ramgarhia manipulated TRP rating of rival channels of Republic TV to show increase in TRP of Republic TV, around 40 weeks since its launch.

[Breaking] TRP Scam Case : Mumbai Sessions Court Denies Bail To Ex-BARC Chief Partho Dasgupta

Sharmeen Hakim

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