Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on Saturday said the Mumbai Police will cooperate with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the investigation into the TRP (television rating points) scam. However, he reminded that ED, which has filed a money laundering case in the TRP rigging scam, will have to take the state government’s approval before starting its probe. ED will probe if fake TRPs were generated and if the money earned through this was used to generate illegal funds and create illegitimate assets.
Already the Mumbai Police has registered offences and started a probe into the scam.
Deshmukh said, “Mumbai Police has registered cases into the TRP manipulations and its probe is on the right track. As far as ED is concerned, it has registered an enforcement case information report (ECIR), which is based on the first information report (FIR) registered by the Mumbai Police last month. ED case is with regard to money laundering.” He referred to the recent Supreme Court ruling whereby the central investigating agencies will have to take the approval of respective state governments.
Deshmukh however, reiterated that the Mumbai Police will extend cooperation to ED in its probe.
The Mumbai Police is conducting an inquiry under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections- 409 (criminal breach of trust by an agent), cheating (420), 212 (harbouring offender), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 465 (forgery) and 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), section 174 (non-attendance in obedience to an order from public servant), 179 (refusing to answer public servant authorised to question), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence or giving false information to screen offender) 204 (destruction of evidence) and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy).
On the other hand, the ED complaint was filed after studying a Mumbai police FIR that was registered in October and it had named the Republic TV channel, two Marathi channels and few other individuals. However, Republic TV and other accused have denied wrongdoing and manipulation of the TRP system.
