Police twisted Arnab Goswami's chats, Republic channel tells HC

Arnab Goswami's Republic TV on Wednesday accused the Mumbai Police of "twisting, distorting and selectively leaking" the WhatsApp chat between him and Partho Dasgupta, the former chief of BARC. The channel further claimed that the city police has only filed a "voluminous" charge sheet but has failed to bring on record a single incriminating material against the channel or its office bearers including Goswami, booked in the TRP scam case.

In an affidavit filed before a bench led by Justice Sambhaji Shinde, the ARG Outlier Media group claimed that the city police has leaked the twisted chats and might have deleted some of them only to mislead the court and delay the hearing of their writ petition seeking to quash all the criminal proceedings in the TRP scam case.

"The purported WhatsApp chats were selectively leaked, twisted, and doctored to create prejudice and discredit us despite the fact that the chats have nothing to do with the TRP case and establishes no wrongdoing on our part," the affidavit states. Further, the channel has claimed that despite there being no evidence against it or any of its office bearers the city police has shown them as accused in the case.

"The chargesheet though voluminous in weight is negligible in evidence against us. The law-and-order officers have failed to establish a single shred of evidence against the company in their chargesheet," the affidavit claims.