Partho Dasgupta’s police custody extended till December 30

As per police investigations, the accused conspired to raise the TRPs of their channels and paid Dasgupta in lakhs on several occasions

by exchange4media Staff
Published: Dec 29, 2020 9:01 AM | 1 min read

Days after the arrest of ex BARC CEO Patho Dasgupta, the Mumbai Police has submitted a report before the metropolitan magistrate’s court on Monday, stating that the former executive received lakhs of rupees to facilitate TRP manipulation.

The report states that as per police investigations, the accused channels “conspired” to illegally raise the TRPs of their channels and had paid Dasgupta on several occasions, sometimes in dollars.

Dasgupta has reportedly invested the money in jewellery and other immovable properties, as per media reports. Police have seized watches, laptops, mobile phones and silver jewellery from Dasgupta’s residence.

The police approached the metropolitan magistrate’s court, seeking remand of Dasgupta who was arrested on 24^th December. Following this, the court has extended his custody till 30^th December.

The police allege that under Dasgupta’s watch, the TRPs were manipulated, bringing down the ratings of TIMES Now and CNN-News18 to second and third spot respectively.

Police say that initially, Dasgupta and his accomplices fudged raw data from BARC to show inflated viewership. Later, a combination of three methods was used to manipulate the data and project the accused news channel of being number one.