The Maharashtra government on Friday told the Bombay High Court it will continue to refrain from taking coercive action against Arnab Goswami, owner and editor of Republic TV, and employees of ARG Outlier Media till February 12 in the Television Ratings Points (TRP) manipulation case.
A Division Bench of Justices S.S. Shinde and Manish Pitale was hearing a plea filed by ARG Outlier Media seeking protection from coercive steps by the Mumbai Police in the case and a transfer of the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The court said the parties in the case have been filing several replies and affidavits, making it difficult for the court to go through the bulky case with almost 8,000 pages of material.
The Bench remarked, “This way, it will go on for months. Mr. Sibal will have to make this statement every time. All pleadings have to be completed till February 9.” The hearing has been adjourned till February 12.
Senior counsel Kapil Sibal, representing the Maharashtra government, assured the court that the police would not take any coercive action against the petitioners till the next date.
In the last hearing, senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for employees of ARG, said all allegations of the Mumbai Police against Mr. Goswami of payment of bribes to rig TRP numbers was “nonsensical”.
On October 8, Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh had said a TRP racket had been busted that involved Republic TV, Box Cinema, and Fakt Marathi. Mr. Singh had said the channels were manipulating TRPs and were involved in distorting the system used by Broadcast Audience Research Council to rate television channels. About 2,000 barometers are installed in Mumbai to monitor TRPs.
