TRP Scam: Param Bir Singh withdraws defamation suit against Arnab Goswami, court imposes ₹1,500 costs

Senior IPS officer Param Bir Singh on Wednesday unconditionally withdrew the defamation suit filed by him against Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami and ARG Outlier Media, owner of the channel seeking damages to the tune of ₹90 lakh..Singh had filed the suit claiming that the channel had showed Singh in bad light in its reportage of the alleged fake Television Rating Points (TRP) scam. Goswami filed an application seeking rejection of the plaint under Order VII Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure last week. The same was served on Singh for his reply. The application was listed for hearing today, when Singh submitted that he wanted to withdraw the suit. Advocate Pradeep Gandhy appearing for Goswami, however, stated that such a withdrawal should not be presumed as a settlement of the matter. He also pointed out that due to the pendency of such matters at the behest of Singh, there was harassment to Goswami and hence imposing costs was important. In light of this, City Civil Judge VD Kelkar imposed costs of ₹1,500 to be payable directly to Goswami..Earlier, in a detailed response to the suit, Goswami had stated that the suit was not maintainable especially in light of the fact that the plaintiff is no more the Police Commissioner. “Plaintiff has no cause of action to pursue the present suit as the plaintiff is no more the Commissioner of Police and, therefore, the present suit is not maintainable and the plaint ought to be rejected in limine,” the reply filed through law firm Phoenix Legal stated. Goswami contended that the suit had been filed by Singh in his capacity as Commissioner and since he no longer held that post, Singh has no cause of action against Goswami and his channel. In light of this the suit should be rejected and dismissed with costs, the reply prayed. “The instant suit has been filed by in exasperation; Singh has not approached the Court with clean hands and filed the instant Suit with malafide intentions to teach the defendants and company a lesson without any basis and is not entitled to any reliefs whatsoever,” the defendants emphasized..The TRP scam came to light when the Crime Branch of Mumbai Police through certain employees of the Hansa Group, found that ‘sampling metering services’ were being manipulated by paying people to watch particular TV channels.They filed a chargesheet in November 2020 which indicated that Republic TV channels had benefitted from the scam and had tampered its viewership numbers to procure more revenue.However, it was not until June 2021, that the police chargesheeted Arnab Goswami as an accused in the case.On the contrary, ED chargesheet stated that it did not come across any evidence either through statements or digital evidence that Republic TV or Republic Bharat had indulged in practices of manipulating TRPs.The agency claimed that the investigation carried out by Mumbai Police seemed to be at variance with the probe conducted by ED..Goswami stated that the present case alleging defamation against him and the channel was nothing but a case of malicious prosecution aimed at targeting, harassing and embroiling them in several cases. “The entire investigation of the alleged TRP Scam by the Mumbai Police at the behest of Singh and political dispensation of the time was tainted and harbours malice is further established by the fact that Singh in an eight-page letter that he addressed to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra on 20 March 2021 has gone on record to admit that investigations were being guided in political directions”, the reply stated. The reply pointed out that during his questioning by the Enforcement Directorate, Singh purportedly admitted that the TRP case especially against Republic TV was a hoax. He also allegedly deposed that dismissed Mumbai cop Sachin Waze was receiving instructions from former State Home Minister Anil Deshmukh in TRP as well as other cases. “Waze admitted that Deshmukh had personally wanted Goswami to be arrested in the TRP case. This beyond any iota of doubt proves the level of political, police and media conspiracy against the defendants and more particularly against Goswami,” the reply claimed..Goswami and ARG Outlier were represented by Pradeep Gandhy who was briefed by advocates Saket Shukla, Vikram Kamath and Zoeb Cutlerywala from Phoenix Legal.