Former head of the Broadcast Audience Research Council Partho Dasgupta on Monday told the Bombay High Court that the purported WhatsApp ex...
Former head of the Broadcast Audience Research Council Partho Dasgupta on Monday told the Bombay High Court that the purported WhatsApp exchanges between him and Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami were mere “loose talks” and that he should not be kept in detention on the basis of the chats, reported Bar and Bench.
Dasgupta made the submission before a bench of Justice PD Naik, which was hearing the former media executive’s bail plea. The Mumbai Police had arrested Dasgupta in connection with its investigation into the Television Ratings Point scam on December 24. The police have alleged that Goswami bribed Dasgupta with “lakhs of rupees” to ramp up Republic TV’s viewership.
During the hearing, Special Public Prosecutor Shishir Hiray told the court that Dasgupta was directly involved in manipulating TRPs with the help of other accused persons, reported PTI. “They tried to manipulate the entire system of TRPs,” Hiray said.
The TRP scam, the advocate said, happened at three levels. “The barometers for measurement were installed by BARC and Hansa,” he added. “The viewers were paid monthly for watching their channels. The inevitable conclusion is that the information was leaked from BARC.”
Justice Naik then asked if Dasgupta was the one who had leaked the information, to which Hiray said that seemed...
