Ex-CEO of BARC Partho Dasgupta sent to 14-day judicial custody

Mumbai: A magistrate court in Mumbai on Wednesday remanded former Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) chief executive Partho Dasgupta in 14 days judicial custody.

Dasgupta was arrested by the Mumbai police on December 24 in the television rating points (TRPs) manipulation case. The police had earlier told the metropolitan magistrate that Dasgupta was the mastermind of the scam where the ratings of certain TV channels, including Republic TV, were artificially raised when he was heading BARC. They also alleged that he was paid “lakhs of rupees on several occasions” by Republic TV editor in chief Arnab Goswami and that he had used the money to buy jewellery.

In the remand application made before the court on Wednesday, the Mumbai police said they had recovered the jewellery from a bank locker held by Dasgupta and his wife.


Dasgupta’s lawyer, Kamlesh Ghumre, denied the allegations and said there wasn’t any manipulation of the ratings. “My client was the CEO of BARC but there was a board of directors above him and there was an oversight committee, too. It’s a foolproof system … there has been no manipulation of ratings,” he told the court, while seeking bail for his client.

Magistrate AH Kashikar sent Dasgupta in judicial custody as the police did not seek his custody.

Dasgupta’s lawyer told ET that the bail application would be heard on January 1. “All these allegations are false, they claim to have recovered valuables from his bank locker, however they did not even wait for his wife to be present while opening the locker. They made a duplicate key and opened the locker. My client has neither manipulated the TRPs nor has he taken any money from Arnab or anyone else. The entire case has been made to implicate Arnab in this case. There is no case,” Ghumre said.