This is an archive article published on January 4, 2021

TRP scam case: Court rejects bail plea of former BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta

Dasgupta's lawyers are likely to challenge the order before the sessions court. Police had claimed in their remand plea that he had received kickbacks in return of the favourable ratings.

Mumbai police, Mumbai crime branch, trp scam, BARC, former CEO of barc arrested, indian express news

Dasgupta was arrested from Pune. He will be produced before the court for custody on Friday. (Twitter@parthodasgupta)

2 min readMumbaiJan 4, 2021 07:37 PM IST First published on: Jan 4, 2021 at 07:37 PM IST

A Metropolitan magistrate court on Monday rejected the bail application of Partho Dasgupta, the former CEO of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), who was arrested by Mumbai Police in the alleged Television Rating Points (TRP) scam case.

Dasgupta was arrested last month following the arrest of BARC’s COO, Romil Ramagarhia, with allegations that the two were part of a coterie at BARC that had manipulated TRPs to show Republic TV as the top channel in television rankings.

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Seeking his bail, Dasgupta’s lawyers had submitted that it was not possible that he could have carried out the alleged manipulation, given that there were systems in place including the board of directors and internal committees at BARC. Police, however, opposed the plea stating that he was one of BARC’s top officials and investigation is still ongoing.