Mumbai police arrests CEO of Republic TV.
The Chief of the Republic TV Vikas Khanchandani was arrested by the police of Mumbai and he is the 13th person to be arrested in the fake ratings scam case. The Supreme Court (SC) had knocked down the appeal from the ARG Outlier Media Pvt. Ltd. earlier, who is also the owner of the Republic Media Network seeking protection of the employees of the group. The arrest of the top level executive of the group came within less than a week after the appeal was made to the SC.
In a 1400 page charge sheet the channel’s Head of Distribution Ghanshyam Singh’s name appeared in the list and two of the accused stipulated that they would become the certifiers in the case.
The Hansa Research agency who was responsible for placing the rating meters filed a complaint in October earlier this year after an official of the agency Nitin Deokar alleged that manipulation of the ratings were taking place on the Republic Media Network. The Mumbai Police started investigation on this matter and said Republic TV which asserts highest ratings on their channels was manipulating the TV ratings by bribing households where the monitoring machines were set. This was done by the media group to acquire higher advertising rates. Households were asked to keep certain channels on and were paid an amount of 400 to 500 rupees per month, said the police.
The media group had accused the Maharashtra police of ‘hounding’ the employees of the media house and it’s Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami. Justice DY Chandrachud told the group “This petition is ambitious in nature. You want Maharashtra police not to arrest any employee and transfer the case to CBI. You better withdraw this”.
A total number of 140 witnesses have been named in the chargesheet which includes forensic auditors and members of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC).
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