New Delhi: Nine months after registering an FIR in the Television Rating Points (TRP) scam, the Mumbai Police on Tuesday submitted the chargesheet naming Republic TV's editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami as an accused.

Goswami and four others from ARG Outlier Media that owns Republic TV – COO Priya Mukherjee, Shivendu Mulelkar, and Shiva Sundaram – have been named as accused in the second supplementary chargesheet, reported Live Law. Till now, Goswami and others were listed as “suspects” by Mumbai Police in the ongoing investigation.

The 1800 page supplementary charge sheet was submitted in the Esplanade Metropolitan Magistrate Court.

An FIR in the case was registered in October, 2020 after former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh named the channel as being involved in the scam. The scam had come to light last year when BARC lodged a complaint with the Mumbai Police through Hansa Research Group, alleging that certain television channels were rigging TRP numbers by bribing households where BARC bar-o-meters were installed to tune into a particular channel throughout the day.

As many as 15 arrests have been made in the case, the most prominent being former BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta, who later got bail after furnishing a bond of Rs two lakh. The arrested people were charged with cheating, criminal conspiracy, and destruction of evidence.