NEW DELHI: Mumbai Police commissioner Param Bir Singh opened up a pandora’s box on 8 October when he addressed the press conference on the subject of TRP manipulation. Ever since, the news broadcasting industry has been beset by flying allegations and accusations, as well as FIRs and lawsuits against the parties involved – from broadcast networks, federations, to regulators and even research agencies.

One such suit was filed by Hansa Research on 16 October in the city civil court in Mumbai seeking an injunction against use of its name by Republic TV. This was in response to the channel airing something called the 'Hansa Report' without checking with the agency about the veracity of this document.

The court heard the plea and posted a formal hearing on it for a later date but did not entertain a petition for an ad-interim injunction against Republic TV in the matter.

The city civil court has upheld the network’s right to air the ‘Hansa Report’ which detailed the TRP manipulation case and stated that since the referred document is already available on multiple websites and other places, therefore its broadcast cannot be referred to as illegal. The court further mentioned that Hansa has not challenged the veracity of the document aired on Republic.  "

We tried reaching Hansa Research for a comment but were not able to get through to them.

Earlier, Praveen Nijhara, CEO of Hansa Research had said after filing the suit, "We formally sent a notice to Republic TV on 12 October 2020 requesting them not to use our name. Since this was not acted upon, and Republic TV continued to use the Hansa name on television, we had no option but to approach the city civil court seeking an injunction against use of our name. The matter is now sub-judice and will be heard in November."