Relief to Arnab Goswami, Mumbai court allows withdrawal of TRP case

A Mumbai court has granted permission to the city police's crime branch to withdraw the case against Republic TV's editor-in-chief, Arnab Goswami, and 21 others in the Television Ratings Points (TRPs) scam case. The decision, which was reported by Bar and Bench, comes after the Mumbai Police sought to withdraw the case in November last year.

The TRPs scam surfaced in October 2020 when the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) filed a complaint through its vendor, Hansa Research Group, alleging that several channels, including Republic TV, were manipulating their TRPs by bribing households to watch their content.

Subsequently, the Mumbai Police filed a chargesheet in November 2020, accusing Republic TV of tampering with its viewership numbers to increase revenue.

However, Special Public Prosecutor Shishir Hiray, representing the Mumbai Police, informed the court that continuing the criminal proceedings in the case was unlikely to result in a conviction. He pointed out that neither the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the Broadcast Audience Research Council India, nor advertisers had claimed that an offence had occurred or that they had been deceived.

"We applied our mind and felt the case would not lead to conviction and would only waste the judiciary's time and government's effort," Hiray stated during the court proceedings. Metropolitan Magistrate LS Padhen subsequently granted permission for the Crime Branch to withdraw the case.

This development comes after the Enforcement Directorate filed a separate chargesheet in 2022, stating that it did not find any evidence against Republic TV in the alleged scam. The agency had cleared Republic TV and its Hindi news channel, R Bharat, of allegations of manipulating TRPs.