TRP scam: Mumbai police name Arnab Goswami in chargesheet

The Mumbai police have named Republic TV editor Arnab Goswami as an accused in the TRP scam chargesheet, Live Law reported. The supplementary chargesheet, which runs into nearly 1,800 pages, was filed on Tuesday.

Aside from Goswami, the chargesheet now names ARG Outlier Media executives Priya Mukherjee, Shivendu Mulelkar and Shiva Sundaram as well as former CEO of the TV ratings agency BARC Partho Dasgupta and former Republic TV CEO Vikash Kanchanandi. ARG Outlier Media runs Republic TV.

The TRP scam was unearthed last year by the Mumbai police, who alleged that a few media houses were bribing some families in whose homes meters to measure TV ratings had been installed to tune into a particular channel, Republic TV among them. The police then filed an FIR on October 6 and subsequently two chargesheets.

In March this year, the Bombay High Court pulled up the Mumbai police for presenting evidence against Republic TV and Goswami despite three months investigating the case. Neither the channel nor its editor had not been named in the chargesheets then.

The court also said Goswami should be given advance notice of three days if the police wanted to summon him or take coercive action.