A Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Chandrachud on Thursday, 15 October, dismissed a petition filed by Republic TV against the Mumbai Police against its summons to members of the TV channel in the rigged TRPs case, LiveLaw reported.
The SC allowed the channel to move Bombay HC for relief instead, following which the petition was withdrawn by the channel’s counsel Harish Salve.
However, during the hearing, the bench of the Supreme Court said, “we are concerned that commissioners of police have started giving interviews” on cases.
Ahead of the hearing on Thursday, the Mumbai Police has filed an affidavit in the SC urging the apex court to dismiss the petition filed by Republic TV challenging the ongoing investigation by the police against them.
According to LiveLaw, the Mumbai Police has stated in the affidavit that Article 19(1)(a) cannot be used as a shield to prevent any investigation into an alleged crime, in this case the manipulation of TRPs.
The police has also opposed Republic TV’s demand for a CBI enquiry stating that no person has a "vested right" to be investigated by a particular agency. They also pointed out that a number of officials of channels have been summoned in the case but it was only the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Republic TV, S Sundaram, who was not cooperating with the investigation.
Republic TV is the biggest name in the case, while the other two are smaller regional channels named Fakt Marathi and Box Cinema. Republic’s Editor-in-Chief, Arnab Goswami had threatened to sue Mumbai Police for defamation.
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