TRP Scam: "You have no evidence against Republic TV after 3 months:" Bombay High Court to Mumbai Police [LIVE UPDATES]

The Bombay High Court is hearing the petition filed by ARG Outlier Media Pvt. Ltd. (holding company for Republic TV channels) in ARG’s plea challenging the criminal proceedings initiated against their channel and its employees in the TRP Scam case.The matter is being heard by a Bench of Justices SS Shinde and Manish Pitale. Live updates of the hearing feature here..Before you begin tell us what is your contention in one line: Court to Senior Advocate Ashok Mundargi.The first leg is that there are two chargesheets and nothing substantial against me: Mundargi.The second leg of argument is that the prosecution investigation is cooked up. Even if they have arrested people there is nothing against the applicants: Mundargi.So you are saying there is nothing against you even though there are two chargesheets filed: Court.Yes. So for this reason my petition may be admitted and then directions may be given on the expeditious completion of investigation: Mundargi.We may not agree with this contention. There is no statutory timeline to complete investigation: Court .Special Public Prosecutor Shishir Hiray appearing for the State is asked by the court what happens to investigation if the petition is admitted and how long will the investigation take..Hiray submits he will need to take instructions on this point. .Yes, but there are two chargesheets, and there seems to be no evidence against them. And also is there a statutory requirement that the investigation should be completed before the High Court takes cognizance in Section 482: Justice SS Shinde .And this FIR is of October 2020. We are in March 2021. We have seen in matters “khichdi pak rahi hai”. Why keep the sword hanging on their head: Justice Shinde .Their contention is that they are always in the fear that some action may be taken against them and it seems so from the past action against their employees: Justice Pitale weighs in. .You are investigating for the last 3 months and you have no evidence against them: Justice Shinde to Mumbai Police .And they are not making me an accused too: Mundargi.Yes, you are not making them an accused also, why so? Justice Shinde demands. .Milords it is not like we do not have evidence against them. We are collecting: Hiray.Then why not make them an accused? We do not think there is anything as such as “suspect” in criminal law: Justice Pitale.Chief PP Thakare is not here. Let him come. In the meantime Mr. Mundargi can continue: Hiray.Mundargi resumes his submissions. He reads from a letter from IO in TRP case to BARC which is a notice under Section 91 and the response of BARC to that..So they may say that the investigation is from June 2020. They had information, but the details to the scam were received only in December 2020: Mundargi.But there is this letter from the police: Justice Pitale.Maybe so.. and they may have information against anyone but then their target is going to be this channel only: Mundargi.Can we go to the portion of the Commissioner - the analytical report which BARC has submitted of July. Joint CP says he has no information, but then...and there it is clearly stated that Republic is part: Justice Pitale.Let us see Commissioner’s affidavit: Justice Shinde.Here he states that the report from BARC was referred to: Justice PitaleBut the police say they got the report only till December 2020: Mundargi.So you are saying that the report was not submitted to the IO? Even if that report does not give information about Republic that is another realm of argument: Justice Pitale.The report is the internal forensic report and what the judges are referring to is an analytical report of BARC. The Commissioner had information about the report on October 7: Hiray.Hiray submits that the report that the Commissioner was referring to was a different report which was present with him on October 7..Justice Pitale asks why is there no mention of Marathi channels after Mundargi mentions Fakt Marathi TV channel.Hiray: There is material evidence against them. . Box Cinema is not news but still figures in data: Mundargi We are investigating the scam not the news: Hiray.The documents that are shown to us and the submissions that are being made, we do not see the correlation with the worth of the scam. Is there any document which mentions the worth, how many crores of rupees was involved, etc? Justice Pitale asks. .Hiray submits that they are investigating an industry worth Rs 30000 crores. So they are taking that to be the ballpark figure..Mundargi begins reading the BARc internal report (in Marathi). The report gives details on how the investigation commenced when they found discrepancies in the “viewership ratings”..Mundargi reads from the official statement of Abhijit Mehendale (in Marathi) that officers of the vigilance department of BARC had approached people in whose homes they had installed barometers..If we go by evidence, there need not be quantitative evidence, this particular channel is not mentioned. The statement of one Tejal Solanki mentions another channel: Mundargi.Mundargi reads few sentences from Tejal Solanki’s statement. Says reading the entire statement is not necessary. Mundargi then proceeds to read from the statement of the Vigilance Department head of BARC..Mundargi reads statement of one of the accused Bompalli Mistry who was arrested with Bhandari (Hansa informant): "I got commission for telling people to watch particular channels for some hours.".And they recovered cash amount from his locker but these are inadmissible evidence because it is the accused’s statement. But then there are three channels named in the statement of October 8 including the name of Republic: Mundargi.Justice Shinde asks Hiray to get instructions on the timeline of the investigation..I will tell by evening: HirayNo now. We will be hearing the matter till 1 pm only: Justice Shinde.How many witnesses are there: Justice PitaleWill get details. There has been months of investigation. But in spite of so much there is nothing against us: Mundargi.We are still suspects. If there is material against us then let that material be shown. After 4 months they cannot say they will not show material and keep the sword hanging: Mundargi.They cannot keep investigating forever. If they have some material against us, they have to show us, they cannot keep playing hot and cold: Mundargi:.If you are not able to quickly answer our queries ... At appropriate stage we will have questions. Will you be answering them? We don't know who is briefing you or from whom you are taking instructions: Justice Shinde.We have tremendous work, hundreds of matter are there. Our time with view of the litigants is precious. 300 minutes are available. So, therefore, please take instructions properly: Justice Shinde.We have certain things in mind that we do not want to disclose right now. But we are awaiting instructions and our decision depends on that: Justice Shinde.Tomorrow when you (Hiray) come, please come with instructions: Justice Shinde.Justice Shinde (To Mundargi): There are judgments from the Supreme Court which states that the powers of High Court are inherent to exercise powers under Section 482 of CrPC..Earlier when applications for bail were made reasons were not required for grant of bail. Now a days applications are dismissed for want of reasons.. times have changed: Mundargi.We have kept the matter tomorrow: Justice Shinde

TRP Scam: "You have no evidence against Republic TV after 3 months:" Bombay High Court to Mumbai Police [LIVE UPDATES]

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