Mumbai Court allows Police to withdraw TRP Scam case against Arnab Goswami, others

A Mumbai court on Wednesday allowed the crime branch of Mumbai police to withdraw its case concerning the alleged scam of fake Television Rating Points (TRP) of 2020 in which Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami is an accused..Metropolitan Magistrate LS Padhen of Esplanade court permitted the police to withdraw the FIR no. 843 of 2020 after special public prosecutor (SPP) Shishir Hiray told the Court that continuing the criminal proceedings may not lead to conviction in the case but would only end up wasting the court's valuable time.Hiray confirmed the development to Bar and Bench. "We filed an application under Section 321 of the Code of Criminal Procedure which is after a government decision. The prosecution moved an application seeking court's consent to withdraw a case. Accordingly, submissions were made that no one till date has come forward saying the offence has taken place. Neither the TRAI nor BARC or any advertisers have come forward saying they have been cheated or some crime has taken place. We applied our mind and concluded that the case would not lead to conviction and would only waste judiciary's time and government's efforts," Hiray said. .Hiray also referred to the contradicting reports submitted by the Enforcement Directorate where the witnesses did not support the allegations in the Mumbai police case. ED had purportedly registered a money laundering case based on the Mumbai police FIR. In its investigation report, ED also cleared Republic TV and R Bharat of the charges of manipulating TRP numbers in the case.Hiray added that the court was informed of this conflicting evidence..The TRP scam case arose in 2020 when the crime branch discovered that some employees of Hansa Research Group had been manipulating the 'sampling metering services' by paying people to watch particular TV channels.It arrested one Vishal Ved Bhandari who revealed that he used to increase TRP of media channels by offering money to panel homes.During their interrogation with the people who were induced, these home owners agreed that they had received money to even keep their TV sets switched on to a particular channel, even if they did not want to watch it.The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) an organisation under the Ministry of Information, Broadcasting and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India measured the TRPs with the help of barometers..The Crime Branch filed a chargesheet in November 2020 which indicated that Republic TV channels had benefitted from the scam and had tampered their viewership numbers to procure more revenue.However, it was not until June 2021 that the Crime Branch chargesheeted Arnab Goswami as an accused in the case.The police had also arrested more than 10 people in the case and all the accused in the case were eventually granted bail.The Crime Branch filed an application in November 2023 seeking withdrawal of the case under section 321 which was allowed by the Magistrate today.The application stated that the State home department took a decision to withdraw the case considering various factors including contradictions in the Mumbai police probe.The court permitted prosecution to withdraw the case and passed an order allowing the application for withdrawal. A detailed order is awaited.