TRP Scam: No Ad-Interim Relief to Hansa Group Against Republic TV

The suit, reportedly, points out that Goswami’s channel telecasted a draft internal document as ‘Hansa Report.’

The Hansa Research Group had filed a suit against ARG Outlier Media Private Limited and it’s chief Arnab Goswami, seeking a permanent injunction order.

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/The Quint)

A city civil and session court in Mumbai on Wednesday, 22 October, refused to grant ad-interim relief in a civil suit filed by Hansa Research Group, seeking permanent injunction restraining Republic TV and editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami from broadcasting the group’s internal report prepared along with BARC or any other internal report, according to LiveLaw.

This is in connection with the Television Rating Points (TRP) scam that both the Republic TV, as well as the Hansa Group, presently find themselves enmeshed in.

According to The Hindu, the Hansa Research Group had filed a suit against ARG Outlier Media Private Limited and it’s chief Goswami, seeking a temporary injunction until the suit restraining the channel is finally disposed.

THE PLAINT

According to The Hindu, the plaint says:

“In order to overcome this misuse, the vigilance team of BARC and the plaintiff are constantly monitoring for any wrong-doing to influence viewers to watch a particular channel to boost the viewership data of that channel. During investigations by the vigilance team of BARC with Hansa it was found that Vishal Bhandari, former employee of Hansa, was inducing viewers to watch particular channels. Hence, deputy general manager Nitin Deokar filed a complaint on October 6. (Sic)”   

The suit, according to the report, points out that Goswami’s channel telecasted a draft internal document as 'Hansa Report' prepared by Hansa Research Group, that was neither shown to nor approved by the company’s CEO, without consent.

“After the announcement by the Commissioner of Police on the TRP scam, Mr Goswami referred to the particular document, showed parts and portions of the document on the screen again and again, and claimed that the name of Republic TV was not mentioned in the said report but the name of some other channel was there.” 

The plaint read

The court, however, reportedly refused to grant temporary injunction and the matter has been listed for further hearing on 21 November.

(With inputs from Live Law and The Hindu.)