Bombay HC grants bail to BARC EX-CEO
Former Broadcasting Audience Research Council (BARC) CEO Partho Dasgupta was granted bail by the Bombay high court on Tuesday in the TRP manipulation case. The single judge bench of justice PD Naik granted bail to Dasgupta, 55, on a person bond of ₹2 lakh and two solvent sureties, saying that his detention was not necessary and there was no propriety in keeping him behind the bars. Dasgupta has been accused of having misused his official position and conniving with ARG Outlier Media, the company which runs Republic TV channels, and with Republic TV Editor- in-chief Arnab Goswami, to allegedly manipulate TRPS. Republic TV has denied any wrongdoing. The high court noted that the Mumbai police have already filed a charge-sheet and a supplementary charge-sheet in the case.
MUMBAI : Former Broadcasting Audience Research Council (BARC) CEO Partho Dasgupta was granted bail by the Bombay high court on Tuesday in the TRP manipulation case.
The single judge bench of justice PD Naik granted bail to Dasgupta, 55, on a person bond of ₹2 lakh and two solvent sureties, saying that his detention was not necessary and there was no propriety in keeping him behind the bars.
Dasgupta has been accused of having misused his official position and conniving with ARG Outlier Media, the company which runs Republic TV channels, and with Republic TV Editor- in-chief Arnab Goswami, to allegedly manipulate TRPS. Republic TV has denied any wrongdoing.
The high court noted that the Mumbai police have already filed a charge-sheet and a supplementary charge-sheet in the case.
It is not clear as to how long the purported further investigation would continue and the applicant cannot be detained indefinitely in the facts of this case, the order said.
“The applicant shall attend the police station concerned on the first Saturday of each month for a period of six months. After that, he shall appear once in three months,” the HC said.
During a hearing on Dasgupta’s bail application, his counsel Aabad Ponda informed the court that of the 16 accused in the case, only the BARC CEO was still in jail.
Ponda argued that Dasgupta could not be held solely responsible for the alleged offences over the purported text messages he exchanged with Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami on Whatsapp.
The single judge bench reserved its order on the bail application on February 16.
Dasgupta approached the high court after the sessions court rejected his application in January.
He was arrested on December 24 last year.
DHARAMSALA: Over 150 monks have tested positive for Covid-19 at Gyuto Buddhist monastery near here and the area has been declared a containment zone, officials said on Tuesday.
The Covid-19 cluster came to light last week when 20 cases were detected. Around 330 monks have been tested and 154 were found to be infected with the virus in the last eight days, Gurdarshan Gupta, the district’s Chief Medical Officer of Kangra district, said.
“Investigation into the cluster at Gyato Monestary revealed that incident started at the monastery festival on February 14. About 15 monks came from Karnataka and Delhi. First cases were reported on February 23,” Kangra collector Rakesh Prajapati said.
The infected monks, a majority of whom are asymptomatic, have no travel history and are being quarantined within the monastery compound.
“Surprisingly, all persons coming from outside have tested negative. Only one patient in moderate category was shifted to Tanda Medical College Hospital. The rest are being managed in home isolation at the monastery,” the DC said.
The area has been declared a containment zone and sealed by Sub-divisional Magistrate, Dharamsala until further notice.
Everyone above the age of 60 in the monastery shall be vaccinated, the DC said.
The Gyuto Tantric Monastery here is an important institution of the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism where monks from Tibet, Mongolia, Ladakh, Sikkim and Spiti are resident students of Buddhist studies.
KOLKATA: The electoral alliance between the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M) and the Congress with hardline cleric Abbasuddin Siddiqui’s Indian Secular Front in pollbound Bengal, is causing problems not just within the Congress, but also within the larger Left Front and the extended Siddiqui family even though Congress conceded three seats from its quota on Tuesday to ISF.
On Sunday, Siddiqui appeared alongside Left and Congress leaders at the CPI(M) rally in Kolkata’s Brigade Parade Grounds and swore to overthrow chief minister Mamata Banerjee and defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). .
A senior leader of the Left Front disclosed on condition of anonymity that on Saturday evening, barely 12 hours before the rally, the Forward Bloc, the party freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose formed in 1939 after quitting the Congress, and which is a part of the CPI(M)-LED Left Front, refused to attend the mega event because Siddiqui was invited.
“Naren Chatterjee, the Forward Bloc state secretary, wrote a letter to Front chairman and senior CPI(M) leader Biman Bose seeking proof of the ISF’S secular credentials. Three leaders of the Bloc took the letter to the CPI(M) office at Alimuddin Street. Bose called up Chatterjee
and somehow convinced him to attend the rally,”added this person.
A member of the CPI(M) state committee, who did not want to be named admitted that there are many in the party for whom the idea of walking alongside a religious leader on the campaign trail goes against the fundamentals of Marxist ideology.
On Monday, serious differences appeared in the Congress as well over the party’s Bengal president and Lok Sabha member Adhir Ranjan Chowdury sharing the dais with Siddiqui at Sunday’s rally. Siddiqui criticised the Congress during his speech, presumably upset that the party isn’t willing to allot share out of its quota to the ISF.
“The Congress’s alliance with parties like ISF and other such forces militates against the core ideology of the party and Gandhian and Nehruvian secularism, which forms the soul of the party. These issues need to be approved by the CWC,” Anand Sharma, deputy leader of the Congress in the Rajya Sabha, tweeted on Monday evening.
By Tuesday, the Congress agreed to spare three south Bengal seats for the ISF which now wants to negotiate for some more seats in the north Bengal region. However, state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary did not participate at the seat sharing discussions with the Left, even though he was in Kolkata.
The Left Front partners have already given up 30 seats for the ISF. The Bengal assembly has 294 seats of which 92 have been marked for the Congress so far. The CPI(M) and other Left parties have not declared the number of seats they will contest.
Abbasuddin Siddiqui’s entry into politics has also caused discomfort among members of his family, custodians of the famous Furfura Sharif shrine, one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in Bengal. Muslim’s accounted for 27.01% of West bengal’s population according to the 2011 census; this is believed to be around 30% now.
Reacting to the allegation that Marxists have joined hands with a religious leader with an eye on the elections, Biman Bose said, “Siddiqui may be a religious leader but the ISF is a secular front. He will not field Muslims only. Members of the tribal community and backward classes will also contest.”
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