TRP scam: Police summon Republic TV CFO, ad world honchos

Tightening the screws in the alleged fudged TRP data scam, the Mumbai Police have summoned the Chief Financial Officer of Republic TV and two heads of major advertising agencies for questioning on Saturday, officials said here on Friday.

Republic TV CFO Shiva Sundaram and heads of two prominent advertising agencies have been asked to report at the Crime Branch office at 11 a.m. on Saturday to record their statements.

The development came a day after the Mumbai Police sent the country’s television industry in a tizzy by unearthing a suspected mega scam of fraudulent Television Rating Point (TRP) estimated to be worth over Rs 30,000 crore.

The police have named Republic TV, India Today TV, Fakt Marathi and Box Cinema among the accused after its discreet investigation conducted in the past few days.

Hitting out at the police probe, Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami has denied all the allegations, claiming a witch-hunt against his channel for questioning the police and the Maharashtra government. He also threatened to file a criminal defamation case against Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh.

While at least two persons have been arrested in connection with the case so far, the police teams are probing the involvement of more people connected to the TV industry and the ad world who are suspected to be involved in the TRP fraud with an eye on a bigger piece of the advertising revenue cake.

Maharashtra’s ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) leaders – Shiv Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi, Sanjay Raut, Arvind Sawant and Kishore Tiwari, Nationalist Congress Party leader and state Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, and Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant – have welcomed the police action and demanded stringent action against those found guilty.