TRP fraud: Ninth accused arrested by Mumbai Police

Mumbai Police’s crime branch on Thursday arrested 45-year-old Harish Kamlakar Patil, who worked as a vendor for television channels, as part of its investigation

Mumbai Police’s crime branch on Thursday arrested 45-year-old Harish Kamlakar Patil, who worked as a vendor for television channels, as part of its investigation into allegations of television rating points (TRP) being rigged. Patil, a Chandivli resident, is the ninth accused to be arrested in the case. He was produced before a magistrate’s court and has been remanded in police custody till October 26.

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The alleged TRP scam came to light after the ratings agency Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) filed a police complaint alleging certain channels were rigging TRPs in order to attract advertisers. According to the crime branch, Patil is suspected of having fraudulently increased TRPs for certain channels. He had registered seven dummy companies with various addresses in Mumbai, all in his name. “It appears all seven companies were dummy companies and used for financial transaction by channels. We are investigating the veracity of these companies and its links with all channels and their financial transactions,” said assistant police inspector Sachin Vaze, of crime branch. Vaze said the authenticity of the seven firms was in doubt since the crime branch had found that a firm owned by Patil, named Capslock Digital Solution Private Limited, was a dummy entity. “We found there was no company registered to the given address,” said Vaze.

Patil is also allegedly a close associate of wanted accused, identified as Abhishek, who also works as a vendor for many channels including Republic TV and runs a company named Max Media and is suspected to have fled the city, said crime branch officials. “One of the five suspected channels had deposited money in Capslock Digital Solution and Abhishek had withdrawn the amount and distributed it to others, including the arrested accused Umesh Mishra and others who then gave the money to households where barometers were installed to increase TRP,” said Vaze.

Abhishek uses multiple mobile numbers, registered using forged documents. “Abhishek does not use phone numbers registered in his name. He does not disclose his real identity, and deals with people using fake names,” said Vaze, adding that one of Abhishek’s numbers is in the name of someone who died three years ago. Kothawale also has two mobile numbers in the name of arrested accused Umesh Mishra.

On Friday, crime branch added four new sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in the case, including sections 212 (harbouring offender), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 465 (punishment for forgery) 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating). This is the second time sections have been added to the case that was originally registered on October 6 under sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 409 (criminal breach of trust), and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC. On October 20, the crime branch had earlier added four more sections, including sections 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information) and 204 (destroying any document to prevent its production as evidence).