Mumbai: The Mumbai police has named Republic TV’s editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami and two top Republic TV management persons as accused in the supplementary chargesheet filed in the TRP manipulation case, before the Esplanade Magistrate court in the city on Tuesday.
Other Republic TV bigwigs - its Chief Operating Officer (COO) Priya Mukherjee, its Chief Financial Officer S. Sivasundaram have also been named as accused. Two persons who worked under its distribution head and vice president Ghanshyam Singh - Shivendu Mulerkar and Ranjeet Walter are the two Republic TV staffers named. Along with Goswami, six others have been freshly named as accused in this chargesheet, taking the total number of accused in the case from 16 to 23 accused, said special public prosecutor in the case Shishir Hiray.
The non-Republic TV persons named are Maha Movie Channel CEO Sanjay Verma and its business head Amit Dave.
Priya Mukherjee, a resident of Bangalore, had been called for questioning in the case several times and had sought anticipatory bail before a sessions court. She was granted the relief in December last year. The pre-arrest bail plea of CFO Sivasundaram is pending before the sessions court and he has been granted interim protection from arrest in the meantime.
In March this year, during a hearing on a plea filed by ARG Outlier and Goswami challenging the FIR in the case, the Bombay HC had asked the Mumbai police why Goswami and ARG Outlier Media Pvt Ltd. (the company that runs Republic TV) had not been named as accused in the case, despite its claims of having adequate evidence against them. By then the police had filed two chargesheets in the case after the FIR was registered in October last year.
