The Mumbai Police has summoned five Republic TV investors to appear before them on Friday over the alleged TRP scam. The special investigation team of Mumbai police probing the alleged manipulation of Television viewership by certain channels including Republic TV have sent out 91 notices to Republic TV so far.
The police have previously quizzed Republic TV officials inlcuding chief financial officer Shiva Sundaram. They also arrested the owner of Max Media, Abhishek Kolwade, who allegedly admitted receiving payments from two channels including Republic TV for manipulating TRP.
Mumbai police had issued summons to the owners of RPG Power Trading Ltd, Anant Udyog LLP, Purvanchal Leasing Ltd, Pan Capital Investment, Dynamic Storage and Retrieval Systems Private Ltd to join the investigation on October 23.
Police have also suspected Hansa group’s involvement in the TRP scam over a payment of Rs 32 lakh by the company to media channel.
SIT is also conducting prove against five other firms including Box Cinema, Fakt Marathi, Maha Movie, News Nation and Wow for allegedly paying households to watch their channel.
Meanwhile, Republic TV has said that the Mumbai Police is launching a “witch-hunt” against them, displaying their “intimidatory tactics”. The channel said that the SIT has asked every investor of the channel to present all financial transactions relating to last five years.
Explaining payment received from Hansa Group, Republic TV has said that the payment was made for advertising purposes. The channel denied any previous connect to the Hansa Research, the company which was contracted by Broadcasting Audience Research Council to install bar-o-meter to manage viewership patterns.