[TRP Scam] Arnab Goswami and Partho Dasgupta were thick friends: Maharashtra government to Bombay High Court

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict in the bail plea filed by Partho Dasgupta, former CEO of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) who is presently in judicial custody for his alleged involvement in the Television Rating Points Scam (TRP Scam)..The hearing before Justice PD Naik on Tuesday witnessed arguments by Special Public Prosecutor Shishir Hiray after Senior Advocate Aabad Ponda had concluded his submissions on Monday. .Hiray pointed out that even though the Chief Operating Officer of BARC, Romil Ramgarhia was in charge of the finance, Dasgupta was the main executive officer and the managing director of the company which is a more important position in the company..Having said that Hiray also clarified that the State had applied for permission to challenge the order granting bail to Ramgarhia and a green signal was expected any minute for the same..Hiray also argued that the person occupying the post of CEO needs clearance from the Central ministry which is not a requirement in other companies..His primary contention was that Dasgupta had thick relations with Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami and that was evident from the WhatsApp chats which was submitted through the supplementary chargesheet filed by the Mumbai Police..“There are voluminous chats which have to be investigated. And the network channel head and Dasgupta were such thick friends. At one point Goswami even said that Dasgupta was his alter ego,” Hiray said. .He referred to the chats to claim that Dasgupta was the king-pin in the case and along with Goswami held considerable power to tamper with witnesses..The Crime Branch of Mumbai Police is taking all measures to conduct the interrogation of Partho Dasgupta while in judicial custody, Hiray added. He stated that the officers had been taking permissions from the Court to investigate Dasgupta in Taloja jail..In the rejoinder to the arguments of the State, Senior Advocate Aabad Ponda and Advocate Arjun Singh Thakur submitted that the hearing of bail was not the stage to decide on the innocence of Dasgupta..Ponda reiterated his submissions on the chargesheet by stating that the jewellery and the photos and reports around it was inadmissible and unconnected to the present investigation. .He added that not a single advertiser who should have been affected by the Rs. 32,000 crore scam had come forward to file a complaint for allegedly having over paid the channels accused in the scam..Ponda informed the Court that the data that gets submitted to BARC is so humungous that it will not be possible to manipulate it.“Four times the data of Aadhar is stored with BARC,” he claimed..Replying to Hiray’s contention that BARC CEO was supposed to follow guidelines set by BARC, Ponda mentioned that the consequences for breaching the guidelines was civil liability and not criminal liability..It was also Ponda's case that the accused was not even interrogated properly while he was in judicial custody.He also added that if interrogation and investigation was not completed, the chargesheet against him should not have been filed at all..After hearing both sides at length, the Court reserved the matter for orders.