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Republic TV’s lawyer told Bombay High Court that Whatsapp chat between Arnab Goswami and former BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta were merely chats between two very close friends that had nothing to do with TRP manipulation
Mundargi was responding to the court’s query on what was the most clinching evidence cited by the Mumbai police’s crime branch in the chargesheet in the TRP scam. “The highest evidence is these chats. However, please go through the entire chats because the police has taken these chats out of context to build its case,” Mundargi said. He then read out some of the Whatsapp chats between Goswami and Dasgupta and told the court that the two had merely been discussing some “persons, market trends” etc.
“This chat was between two very close friends. There is nothing, not one text, or one message, which shows that TRP manipulation was discussed. They were discussing topics that two friends might ordinarily discuss,” Mundargi said.
A bench of Justices SS Shinde and Manish Pitale then asked if, as CEO of Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), Dasgupta had helped “tweak” the TRPs (Television Rating POints) in favour of Republic TV to help Goswami. Mundargi responded saying while that was the police’s case, it had not established the same in the two chargesheets filed in the case.
Mundargi was making his submissions on the pleas filed by Goswami and ARG media seeking several reliefs in the TRP scam case. The main concern is that the police had filed two chargesheets but was yet to name Goswami and several other employees of ARG media as accused in the case, he said. The police had merely named them as suspects and was prolonging the probe, resulting in their continued harassment, Mundargi added.
He said the court must ask the police not to go on with the probe indefinitely, and that it must grant Goswami and others protection from arrest till the investigating remained pending. The HC, however, said there was no law that empowered a court to direct the investigating agency to complete its probe within a specific time.
